BBC reports Apple is now the world's most valuable company

[ricocamus]

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Apple now the world's most valuable company

They've come a long way since those early days and it looks like then can keep on going!

[booblanco]

you only have to look at the hysteria that they generate in their retail stores on any given day.

just wait until they release the iPad3 and the iPhone5.

[rbenzon]

and in barcelona this week, where the biggest mobile conference happens every year, the most stolen item is the iphone. no one touched my friend's BB and android. even thieves have taste.

[Salaryman Ryan]

Apple's market capitalisation hits beyond 600 Billion USD.

Apple Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company Ever - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD

After charting an all-time high of $647.21 and bringing Apple’s market capitalization beyond $600 billion last week, shares in the company rose higher still on Monday, carrying it past another milestone. Apple today became the most valuable public company of all time.Apple’s stock price rose more than $16 this morning, to a new high of $664.74 in late-morning trading. And with 937.41 million shares outstanding, that pushed the company’s market cap beyond $623 billion. That’s an all-time record for a publicly traded company, beating out Microsoft, which claimed the title back in December 1999, when its market value hit $616.3 billion. (Addendum: As noted below, that does not take inflation into consideration; in inflation-adjusted dollars, Microsoft was worth about $850 billion at the end of 1999.) Microsoft today is valued at about $257.6 billion.
Apple’s market cap is now $200 billion greater than that of Exxon Mobil, the company with whom it was dueling for the title of “world’s most valuable company” a little more than a year ago.

Imagine back in the 90s when Microsoft was king and PCs were everywhere, no one would have predicted what Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs would have achieved two decades later. In fact, when people saw I was using Apple computers back in the late 90s, they would ask me "Won't that be incompatible with Windows?" MS Office was first made on a Mac so cross compatibility was never a problem. Most techies friends of mine would tell me that they would never buy an Apple computer. Oh how things have changed. Now all of them have Macbook Pro or iMacs. Everyone I know now owns an Apple product. From iPods to iPhones.

[SE20]

In related news, iPhone sales > Microsoft sales.

From Vanity Fair: How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer and Corporate America

EXCERPT:

Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft.
No, really.
One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.

[ricocamus]

Apple's market capitalisation hits beyond 600 Billion USD.

Apple Becomes the Most Valuable Public Company Ever - John Paczkowski - News - AllThingsD



Imagine back in the 90s when Microsoft was king and PCs were everywhere, no one would have predicted what Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs would have achieved two decades later. In fact, when people saw I was using Apple computers back in the late 90s, they would ask me "Won't that be incompatible with Windows?" MS Office was first made on a Mac so cross compatibility was never a problem. Most techies friends of mine would tell me that they would never buy an Apple computer. Oh how things have changed. Now all of them have Macbook Pro or iMacs. Everyone I know now owns an Apple product. From iPods to iPhones.

There are still quite a few holdouts for Win PCs, however, I notice that where people have a choice (like in the office where I work) they usually choose Mac. Also, people who spend their own money and spend a lot of time with their machines (creatives, entrepreneurs, etc) Mac is a common choice. You still pay a premium these days for being a Mac person, but many have been able to justify the premium.

I saw a stock analyst report the other day that says that Apple is forecast to hit $730 per share within 12 months. As long as the quality products keep rolling out, there is no doubt in my mind that the stock price will get there.

[macdrive007]

Good thing that recent not-so-Steve-Jobs-standard Apple ad did not affect Apple's stock. An Apple critic could have said that such an ad is the start of the decline of Apple, where ads & products divert from Steve Jobs' vision...

[ijingo]

Apple is the most valuable company in the world, but not in history.

[PatrickGaerlan]

Apple is the most valuable company in the world, but not in history.

Apparently, the IBM $1.3 trillion market cap figure adjusted for inflation is wrong. According to fullfact.org:

Taking the figure of $192.3 for the IBM value in 1967, the Columbia Journalism Review adjusted the cap for inflation, valuing 1967 IBM at $1.3trillion in today’s money.

However, the NYT article had already adjusted the graph’s figures to 2012 money. IBM’s 1967 value is equivalent to $192.3 in 2012, not $1.3 trillion. IBM actually had a market cap of approximately $28.03 billion in 1967, according to the inflation calculator.

Microsoft still holds the record for highest market cap in history, about $850 billion adjusted for inflation -- a figure I think within reach of Apple.

[neilc]

In related news, iPhone sales > Microsoft sales.

From Vanity Fair: How Microsoft Lost Its Mojo: Steve Ballmer and Corporate America

EXCERPT:

Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft.
No, really.
One Apple product, something that didn’t exist five years ago, has higher sales than everything Microsoft has to offer. More than Windows, Office, Xbox, Bing, Windows Phone, and every other product that Microsoft has created since 1975. In the quarter ended March 31, 2012, iPhone had sales of $22.7 billion; Microsoft Corporation, $17.4 billion.

Yes, because the price of the iPhone is so high. Also, piracy was the main problem of Microsoft several years ago.