Apple Is Now the Most Valuable Company In History 398
derekmead writes "Apple, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Microsoft, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Apple has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Exxon-Mobil for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."
East India Company (Score:5, Interesting)
What would be the value of the British east india company in today's dollars?
Re:If this article... (Score:2, Interesting)
What article/summary did you read? It apparently wasn't the same one I read, as everything was simple facts and completely unbiased. I know people here like to hate on Apple, but to hate on something factual is just...sad.
Not for long (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple is replaying their history during 90s.
It's eerie, really. Soon after Macs began its success, MS sold their graphical OS through just about all hardware makers, Apple sued and lost, and Jobs's got ousted, and Apple shriveled up. Just replace "ousted" with "died" and MS/Windows with Google/Android.
Re:East India Company (Score:5, Interesting)
Comparisons with the British East India Company are tricky, mainly because the BEIC was a government corporation. The BEIC flew its own flag, maintained its own military, engaged in private warfare, and it's credit was backed tacitly by the British crown -- more like Fanny Mae, it Fanny Mae was a trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund that owned half the real estate on the Asian continent, and had an air force capable of starving a city.
Even Shell or Exxon aren't really comparable enterprises.
Re:East India Company (Score:5, Interesting)
Donno but the South Sea Company in 1720 made a second round of stock offering and sold 1 million shares at 400 pounds each. That's 400 million pounds.
Adjusted for inflation that's about 720 billion pounds, or in US money:
1.2 trillion dollars
And that's not even the whole company
Re:Selll your stock. (Score:5, Interesting)
My pithy saying was gunning for +1 Funny, not +1 Insightful. I genuinely believe that Apple's influence has either peaked or is peaking. This doesn't mean that they aren't going to be the major player for a the foreseeable future. I find it unlikely that they will be able to maintain their rate of growth and if they start to grow much more vertically they are going to start getting a lot of unwanted government attention.
Additionally, past the iPad there hasn't been a whole lot of innovation coming from them. They haven't showed up in the 7 inch market yet. That is not to see that they won't sell a bajillion iPad mini's when they drop, but that is going to come primarily from within the segment of the market that they already own. The iPod was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people on the platform. The iPhone was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people onto the platform. The IPad was a great device that had no peer so it got a ton of people onto the platform. The mini isn't even out yet but already there are bunch of peers on the market that work pretty darn well, so I think the opportunity there is missed. We will have to wait and see where Apple will be innovating from here out, but I am betting that there days of first to market are shortening.
Re:If this article... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you decide that stock value is the true valuation of a buisness, even though that would be totally incorrect...
and you decided that US Dollars, not adjusted for inflation...
Then I suppose you could make this claim.
But what is Apples value to the world compared to, lets say walmart? If apple and all its products vanished off the face of the earth right now... would it really cause a problem? If walmart closed all of its stores for just a month or 2... we'd actually have food shortages in many rural areas almost immediately. People would lose their homes due to the lack of a paycheck. Many smaller local business buy their inventories from walmart. Suppliers in China and India would have to lay off workers. Many people wouldn't be able to get prescriptions. Bug spray, insecticides, etc... could lead to increases in west nile and other disease. Literally 3 of the 4 horsemen... it's kind of funny really.
Re:If this article... (Score:4, Interesting)
So you believe Market-Cap as a metric is unabashedly pro-apple? Got it, I guess.
I've always thought market cap was an incredibly bad metric for measuring a company.
Just because a couple of fools are willing to pay an inflated price for a share on a particular day shouldn't mean that you can extrapolate to say the entire company is worth that much times the number of shares.
In fact, one look at the market depth for any company is proof enough that most people aren't willing to pay top price, and correspondingly, that the company's worth shouldn't be so directly related to the share price.
But banks tend to be willing to lend money to companies based on their market cap, so what would I know: I'm not an economist.
Re:Selll your stock. (Score:4, Interesting)
Up to and including the iPad there hasn't been much innovation from them. They have just been better at waiting for other companies to blow themselves up trying to market cutting edge stuff until the bugs are worked out and then are great at marketing when they come out with a product using technology that has stabalized.
iPod: they weren't the first digital music player or even the first with a mini-disk. But they were the first to have one that didn't suck because they waited. Same with iPhone: they weren't the first to allow surfing the net on your phone, that had been around for a while. They waited till bigger displays were available and bigger memory. Same with tablets. Tablets have been used for more than a decade. UPS and other couriers have had you sign for stuff on a tablet forever now. But Apple waited till better technology came around that didn't suck for the consumer.
I personally don't have any clue why they are priced so high. They don't have leading market share of anything except the upwardly full of themselves Apple fanboy/fangirl market. They are way behind market share of both PCs and laptops. Android outsells them by miles. Like, WTF? Mind you, maybe investors already have some thoughts about droves of people running from Windows 8. Until those people find out how much Apple overcharges. Still it will be good for a spike in sales.