Microsoft’s stock market value surpassed Apple’s for the first time since 2021 on Friday, making it the world’s most valuable company.
Microsoft vs Apple
- Microsoft claimed the crown from Apple after the former’s market value surged by over $1 trillion over the past year.
- Microsoft ended the trading session at $2.89 trillion, higher than Apple’s $2.87 trillion.
- So far this year, Microsoft is up about 3% after climbing 57% in 2023 in a rally partly boosted by its lead in generative artificial intelligence (AI) through an investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
- Worries about a tepid demand for the smartphone market have pushed Apple’s shares to lose 3% so far this year after climbing 48% last year.
- Demand in China, a big market for Apple, has dropped as the country’s economy makes a slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and a resurgent Huawei affected its market share.
- Sales of Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset began on February 2 in the US,marking Apple’s largest product launch since the iPhone in 2007. However, UBS, in a report this week, said that Vision Pro sales would be “relatively immaterial” to Apple’s earnings per share in 2024.
Financial earnings
Analysts on average see Apple posting a rise in revenue by 0.7% to $117.9 billion for the December quarter, according to LSEG. That would mark its first year-on-year revenue increase in four quarters, according to Reuters
Apple is set to report its financial results on February 1.
For the fiscal third quarter ended July 1, Apple said salesfell 1.4% to $81.8 billion and earnings per share rose 5% to $1.26. That exceeded analyst expectations of $81.69 billion and $1.19 per share, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Weaker iPhone sales were offset by higher sales in the services segment that contains Apple TV+ and by sales in China that increased 8% year over year.
In a recent quarterly report in November, Apple’s sales forecast for the holiday quarter missed Wall Street expectations, weighed down by soft demand for iPads and wearables.
Analysts see Microsoft reporting a 16% rise in revenue to $61.1 billion, boosted by ongoing growth in its cloud business when it reports in the coming weeks.
Net fortunes
Bill Gates, who cofounded Microsoft with Paul Allen, had a real-time net worth of $120.2 billion as of January 13, 2024, according to Forbes estimates.
Source: forbesmiddleeast