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THE RISE AND RISE of Apple marked yet another significant milestone last night – when the company, although briefly, officially became the world’s most valuable company.
In a day of mixed trading on Wall Street, the California-based electronics manufacturer temporarily overtook petrol company ExxonMobil – better known on these shores as the parent company of Esso – to become the most valuable company in the world.
At its lowest point yesterday, the oil company shed 4 per cent of its value – while Apple’s shares never fell into the red, closing the day having gained almost 6 per cent.
As a result of ExxonMobil’s temporary decline, Apple’s ‘market capitalisation’ – that is, the total value of all of its shares added together – briefly overtook that of its Texas-based rival.
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By the close of business, however, Exxon shares had recovered to gain 2 per cent – pushing its own market capitalisation back to $348.3bn, with Apple’s not far behind on $346.7bn.
Though Apple returned to the number two slot by the end of the day, AP reported that most analysts expected it to eventually pull clear of the oil company and cement its status as the largest company on the planet.
On this day ten years ago – two months before Apple launched the first iPod – Apple’s shares were priced at $9.51 each. Yesterday, they reached a new peak of $374.01 – meaning they are 39 times more valuable than they were a decade ago.
In fact, if you had opted against buying a first-generation iPod and instead spent your $399 buying Apple shares, your investment would now be worth $16,309 – enough to buy an iPad 2 for yourself and 31 friends at today’s prices, with enough change to buy seven iPod shuffles.
The world’s third most valuable company is PetroChina, which is worth $230bn, just ahead of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China which is worth $225bn based on its current value on the Shanghai exchange.
The most valuable European-based company is BHP Billiton, a mining company, which is worth $172bn.
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It’s an amazing achievement for a company on the brink of death to claw it’s way back to the top. A few years ago, lot people couldn’t get their heads around how Apple would overtake Microsoft given the latter’s monopoly in the PC software market, but they didn’t have to. By inventing entirely new classes of device, they pulled the rug out from underneath Microsoft’s feet, and the shoe is now on the other foot, with Microsoft looking stodgy, inflexible, unable to innovate and condemned to a life of releasing unexciting, incremental updates to its Windows and Office product lines.
FYI: Apple’s shares have peaked higher than that at 404.50 a few weeks ago, but Exon Mobil were much higher too at around 88 (versus 71.64 at close yesterday) and their Market cap exceeded Apple’s until yesterday, briefly.
Apple products are simply a pleasure to work with and are the sexiest devices on the market, and guess what sex sells…. Some people may call it style, but the designs , even of the magnetic ipad2 cover are wicked. Apple has now bought up patents everywhere and are on the war path with the legal slush fund against all the competition and with success, recent block of samsung galaxy in Australia.
Steve jobs is a marketing genius , love him or hate him, he grew this company into something not all as wholesome as an Apple but my god you have to admire the turnaround. Apple doesn’t make products people like, it makes people desire and want their products, it creates the market not supplies it…. The heaven of marketing has been created !!
Ps. Still have a pc, but been a sucker for their products only since iPhone 4.
It goes in cycles…Apple are top dog due to the popularity of their iphones & ipads. They are already seeing challenges to the iphone particularly from Android. Won’t be too long before they see challenges to the ipad too. The question is can they stay ahead of the race…in the short term it seems they can but longer term I doubt it, others are catching up. There’s only so many people willing to pay their higher prices for ‘status products’.
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