There’s been a major shift in the world of technology. Apple, which has been been the most valuable company in the world since 2010, has been dethroned. Alphabet smashed Wall Street estimates in its earning calls today, following which its stock rose 9% and was trading at a high of $770. That translates into a market capitalization of $570 billion, eclipsing Apple’s current market cap of about $535 billion.
This was the first earnings reports presented by Alphabet since its reorganization from Google, and the results show that the move has clearly worked. Alphabet’s stock has been on the upswing over the last year, having risen 40% since January 2015. Apple, on the other hand, had a challenging year, seeing its stock fall by around 20%.
Google had led Apple in terms of market capitalization over the early parts of the 2000s, until Apple overtook it in 2010 after the release of the first iPhone. Apple led by a large margin over the next six years, mostly thanks to its flagship product and the high margins on its hardware business. Recent years, however, have seen iPhone and iPad sales slowing down, leading to decline in Apple’s market value.
Google, on the other hand, has steadily increasing its market cap, successfully transitioning its advertising revenues from web to mobile, all while working on moonshots – ambitious big bets like Nest and Google X.