Apple reclaims its spot at the top as the most valuable company in the world.
The world is an Apple, which is now the most valuable company in the world again.
Apple’s market value gravitated toward the $3-trillion market value mark, falling just short of the milestone on December 13.
But the iPhone and MacBook maker’s trajectory was still enough to overtake Microsoft as the “most valuable” record holder.
The tech company’s shares landed a bit over 2 percent on Monday to close at $175.14, effectively reversing previous gains that would have brought them the $182.86 price needed to hit the $3-trillion milestone.
Growing Apple
It can be recalled that Apple was also the first public company to reach $1 trillion in market value. From there, hitting the $2-trillion mark took only two years.
The corporate giant this time only took a year and four months to leap from $2 trillion to almost an $3-trillion market value. Along with leading tech rivals such as Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet, it had benefited from individuals and other businesses that became more technology-dependent due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s now one of the more richly valued companies in the market, which shows the dominance of U.S. technology in the world and how confident investors are that it will remain in Apple’s hands,” Brian Frank, a portfolio manager at Frank Capital, told Reuters.
“It seems like the stock has priced in every possible good outcome.”
To scale, Apple shares have returned 22 percent annually since the 1990s, while the S&P 500 has returned less than 9% per year during the same period.
According to Apple’s 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K, the “Rest of Asia Pacific” (which excludes Greater China and Japan but includes Australia and Asian countries like the Philippines) accounted for $26.35 billion out of $365.81 billion in net sales this year.
The figure shows a 35 percent increase in sales from 2020, when only $19.59 billion in net sales was recorded in the Asia Pacific. This was “due primarily to higher net sales of iPhone, iPad, and Services.” Moreover, the movement of foreign currencies in the region relative to the US dollar had a “favorable impact” on 2021 net sales for Asia Pacific.
Japan’s $28.48 billion alone was greater than the rest of the Asia Pacific’s net sales while Greater China further dwarfed the amount with $68.36 billion. The Americas remain the most profitable region followed by Europe.
Bearing fruit
If or once Apple hits the $3-trillion mark, Microsoft will be left behind as the only company valued past $2 trillion. The $1-trillion club, meanwhile, is still relatively more crowded with Alphabet, Amazon, and Tesla.
The competition, however, doesn’t fall far from the tree with Microsoft’s market value estimated at $2.6 trillion.
It was also the most valuable company globally as recently as late October, a period when Apple had reported supply chain constraints that could threaten its growth for the remainder of 2021.
Apple investors can expect new revenue opportunities like the rumored Apple Car on top of its current portfolio of consumer electronics and online services.
The iPhone remains the company’s most valuable product and main revenue source.
“This year we launched our most powerful products ever, from M1-powered Macs to an iPhone 13 lineup that is setting a new standard for performance and empowering our customers to create and connect in new ways,” Apple CEO Tim Cook says.
Banner Photo by Laurenz Heymann on Unsplash
