BIG TECHS FOOTPRINT
Global Tech Giants VS. Economies of the World
Tech giants have which had already exploded in value over the past few years grew exponentially during the pandemic
Back in early 2020, I write about the members of the newly found Trillion Dollar Club — that included Apple, Microsoft, Amazon & Google. At the time, some analysts believed that this insatiable appetite for tech stocks may not be sustainable. That might have been the case but then the Black Swan event of the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the tech giants took an exponential trajectory as the services provided by them become essential to a majority of the home-bound global population.
Thanks to the anti-trust lawsuit struck down recently in favor of the social media giant, Facebook is the newest member of the exclusive group having a market cap of over a trillion dollars. Even before the onset of the pandemic, these big techs had adopted the successful model of wide-scaling market penetration, smart diversification, and the transformation of products into services — no wonder that these tech companies have become so big.
To analyze how big the technology companies have gotten, a recent study by Mackeeper looks at the market capitalization of the tech giants and then compares them with the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of countries. Keep in mind though that market cap & GDP two different metrics — the former the total value of shares outstanding in a publicly-traded company and gives an indication of total valuation, while the latter measures the value of all goods and services produced by a country in an entire year.
The prices for the market cap of the tech companies are as of close on Jul. 07, 2021.
Apple
The Smartphone giant’s market cap topped $2.4 trillion with the shares closing at a record high today. Were Apple a country, this value would make it the eighth largest economy in the world — between France and Italy. Overall, Apple is worth more than 96% of the world (Figure 1). The company’s net worth exceeds the GDP of countries like Italy, Brazil, Canada & Russia. With the current growth, the company looks well poised to overtake France in the global rankings, which has a GDP of $2.72 trillion.
Microsoft
The oldest tech company is ranked 10th on the global rankings with today’s closing market cap of almost $2.11 trillion. This alone puts it at №9 on the rankings, jumping two spots from when the article was published last — overtaking Brazil & Italy with a GDP of $1.83 and $2.0 trillion respectively (Figure 2). Apart from these two, Microsoft is also richer than many other developed economies including Canada, Australia, Spain & Indonesia. Both Apple and Microsoft actually have a greater market cap than all of Central Europe and the Baltic countries put together
Amazon
E-commerce pioneer and biggest online retailer in the World, Amazon, has a cumulative market cap of $1.864 trillion which puts it at №10 on the list — right next to Microsoft. This also makes the company bigger than 93% of countries around the globe (Figure 3). It’s also worthwhile to mention that 11th on these global rankings is Saudi Oil giant Aramco which closed today with a market cap of $1.863 trillion, boasting a market cap more than double the GDP of its home country. It is also the only non-tech company placed in the top rankings.
And finally, the social media giant has turned up as the new kid on the block for the trillionaire club. As of today’s close, its market cap stands at just shy of $1 trillion — at $993 billion. The value puts the company at №22 in the global rankings, ahead of countries like the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia & Turkey. Facebook has already crossed the $1 trillion market cap recently after winning an anti-trust case, and the owner of popular platforms like WhatsApp & Instagram is expected to grow even further in the coming days.
If you liked this piece, you might also want to read about World’s 100 Biggest Companies in 2021 that I covered recently.
