In a rivalry dating back to the pioneering days of personal computers, including parents’ garages, scruffy beards and nerdy glasses, Microsoft once again pulled ahead of Apple, re-claiming the title of the world’s most valuable public company. Following Apple’s fourth quarter earnings report on Thursday, which revealed the extent to which the global chip shortage is affecting the iPhone maker, Microsoft’s market capitalization surpassed Apple’s on Friday, marking the first time since July 2020 and only the second time since 2010 that the Windows maker overtook its Cupertino-based rival.
Apple had overtaken its old foe in terms of market capitalization in 2010, when Microsoft was struggling with slow PC sales and Apple was riding a wave of success in the wake of the iPhone’s launch in 2007. In recent years however, under the leadership of Satya Nadella, Microsoft successfully pivoted, reducing its dependency on Windows and becoming a leading player in the growing market for cloud-based enterprise applications. As of market close on November 3, Microsoft’s market capitalization stood at $2.51 trillion, while Apple’s amounted to $2.49 trillion.
As the following chart shows, both companies saw their share price and market capitalization skyrocket in the past few years. After Apple became the first trillion-dollar company in August 2018, it only took the company two more years to pass the two-trillion milestone in August 2020. Microsoft only just passed the $2 trillion barrier in June 2021, but it didn’t slow down after that.
This chart shows the market capitalization of Apple and Microsoft.
