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Apple is bigger by market cap than Microsoft, Google, Amazon & Facebook combined
- oliwarner 14y agoCan anybody say "bubble"? It's clear to most people Apple isn't worth the money the stock markets assign it - well over half their cap is investment in the brand. If they ever do anything to damage that or if they do something even remotely wrong, a whole lot of people are going to lose a whole lot of money.
- AngryParsley 14y agoIs it really so clear? Anyone who thinks AAPL is overvalued (including you) can make lots of money by shorting or using puts appropriately. People aren't doing that, so they must not be very confident about Apple's stock price decreasing.
- oliwarner 14y agoYou might want to note that I'm not saying Apple is going to implode at 15:02:32, 2nd September, 2012. I said it depends on Apple doing something wrong and I can't predict when that'll happen or what it'll be but here are some suggestions: Making the iPhone 7 out of cheese or Tim Cook farting in the wrong direction. Either way, if the markets have shown us anything in the past, it doesn't take much at the moment to send traders into sellmageddon mode.
- npguy 14y agoPurely in valuation terms, Apple stock is in no bubble. AAPL is trading at a P/E of 15.86 GOOG has a P/E of 20.08, for example.
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- msellout 14y agoCould you explain why? The dividend is an indication that they have too much savings. Share repurchasing is an indication that the company believes its shares are undervalued. Or am I missing something?
- pwaring 14y agoThe problem with shorting is that you can make the right call broadly, but time it wrong. I think AAPL is overvalued, but I don't know when (or even if) the market will come to the same conclusion. It costs money to keep short positions open - there are several examples of people who exited short positions in the subprime-mortgage bond market just before the credit crunch. They were convinced that the market was going to crash, but they didn't know exactly when.
- martin_bech 14y agoWhy do you think the stock is overvalued? They only trade at 15 x earnings, so the cap is very much aligned with earnings and growth, i really see nothing in the stock price, that indicates a brand factor. If you compare it to Google, they trade at 20 x earnings.. and have less growth...
- eru 14y agoDo you know if it's feasible to take long term short positions on Apple? Say, like 5 years?
- eckyptang 14y agoFor now... I don't expect this to continue. They've picked some seriously big fights recently. From prior observation, I have always seen that it only ends bad.
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- neya 14y agoSeriously, I'm tired of all this BS. What matters for a real company is how they stand to innovate, not how much they make. Right now, Apple's strategy seems to be more of 'litigate' than innovate. What's the use of all this market cap by exercising unfair, unjust monopoly by abusing the patent system with trivial, BS patents? I know a lot of companies that don't make a lot of money but strive for true innovation (Eg. Tesla Motors). Money is not everything, you know...even a prostitute makes a lot of money..and that doesn't mean that the prostitute is better than the average, faithful woman...because she stands for something true, unlike the prostitute.
- shail 14y agofirst of all I don't think its wise to really say demeaning words about some profession (its the oldest profession and still running many people's house). secondly, there is nothing like an obvious patent, if a patent is defensible then its very much obvious that it wasn't obvious. Remember, Apple hasn't won a case against a small startup. Samsung in itself is a pretty big company and has all the resources to fight Apple and hence I think its more just. that being said, I dont think apple is all rosy, they do bad things but they also make really awesome product. If it were not for apple, you would still be typing on a physical keyboard on your cell phone.
- dsirijus 14y ago> If it were not for apple, you would still be typing on a physical keyboard on your cell phone. No I wouldn't.
- odiroot 14y agoI would, happily. I dread the times we no longer have a choice to type on a physical keyboard. Not one Android/iOS phone would now convince me to throw away my N900.
- dsirijus 14y agoI was just trying to say that someone would have made touchscreen as primary input method. Sorry for the ambiguous statement. But, I could've argued in your direction too - I really miss physical keyboard. Typing on touchscreen is just plain wrong, imho.
- rodh257 14y agoAm I the only one who is tired of being updated what Apples market cap is now bigger than? At first they were interesting stats, but in reality it isn't overly useful information.
- megablast 14y agoSkip the story, not a big hassle. There are lots of stories on HN I am not interested in, yet do not feel the need to write about it. This should always be a rule. I think it is pretty amazing, and only recently remember when it was big news that Apple were worth more than Microsoft.
- ryanstewart 14y agoThis. Clearly Apple is a hugely successful company. Are they ultimately more valuable than all of those companies combined? Not a chance. The case could be made that those companies are undervalued or that Apple is overvalued but ultimately the comparison itself isn't very meaningful without any kind of opinion/analysis behind it.
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- imrehg 14y ago<tangential> Let's say one could choose only one of the groups: either have Apple while MS, Google, Amazon, and FB does not exists, or there's no Apple and the rest is there. Would anyone really choose the first scenario? </tangential>
- ars 14y agoIt used to be people hated Microsoft, these days it's Apple. Interesting world. I fully expect Microsoft to follow the IBM model and focus on services. I'm sure they'll still make an OS and hardware - IBM does too. But their money will come from services.
- mdonahoe 14y agoPeople buying stock
- goggles99 14y agoApple has become the big bully a-hole company that Microsoft used to be (perhaps even worse). Apple always was the little guy and had it's faithful niche market. It was the "underdog" that everyone rooted (or at least deep down felt a bit felt sorry for). Now it has "sold out" and gone mainstream. It has become a greedy corporate giant and with it's figurehead now out of the picture - it's image has begun to tarnish even faster. I predict that dislike or even hatred toward apple will begin to expand until it equals or surpasses that we see of Microsoft today. It will no longer be "hip" and once this image slips - Apple will plummet. This coupled by other tech companies (including all other smartphone manufacturers) banding together and defeating Apple's garbage patent claims (they own a patent on a perfect rectangle as part of a UI design?) will spell an end of a great run for Apple where innovation boomed, but was overcome by greed -leading to their eventual downfall.
- hyperbovine 14y agoAhem. This is way over the top. Apple's global desktop market share is 6% to Microsoft's ~90%. Yes yes mobile is the future, but people worldwide still spend way more time using MS products than Apple products, even when you take that into account. There are legitimate reasons to suspect that Apple's most innovative days are behind them. (For instance, my guess is that, barring the Apple TV which the late Steve may or may not have bequeathed them, they have no "next big thing" in the pipe.) But the ones you describe are not among them.
- taligent 14y agoApple does NOT have a patent on rectangles or rounded corners. And there is no evidence that Apple's image hasn't been tarnished at all in the eyes of the general public. I see no reason that the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini will again be record breaking sellers for Apple this year.
- anthonyb 14y agoAnd yet Apple's legal team suggested that Samsung build smartphones and tablets without rounded corners in order to avoid being sued: http://www.pcworld.com/article/245493/apple_to_samsung_dont_make_thin_or_rectangular_tablets_or_smartphones.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/245493/apple_to_samsung_dont_... Legal brief here - section 2-40 (p 10): http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/807407/Apple_Reply_Expert_declaration.pdf http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/807407/Apple_Reply_Expert_...
- pwaring 14y agoMarket cap means nothing though. Facebook's size measured this way was bigger than all the publicly listed supermarkets in the UK combined, yet Facebook makes less profit than each of them individually.
- shail 14y agoI am pretty sure the post would be true if measured on profits, roughly.
- pwaring 14y agoNo it wouldn't. 2011 profit/net income figures (from the 10-K filings) are: Apple - $26bn Microsoft - $23bn Google - $9.7bn So Apple edged past Microsoft in 2011. It is still some way from overtaking all of the companies combined.
- jamesjguthrie 14y agoYep. Q2 2012 profits: Apple - 11.6 billion Microsoft - 5.11 billion Google - 2.89 billion Facebook and Amazon both < 1 billion
- stevenwei 14y agoThat's ridiculous. Apple's recent 2-3 quarters have been SUPER strong, much more than I would have expected.
- nandemo 14y ago> Market cap means nothing though. Well, it does. If it didn't, then the stock market would mean nothing. Market cap reflects the present value of future cashflows (basically future profits). Supermarkets tend to have very low profit margins, and there are physical and regulatory limits to their growth. The stock market is reflecting investors' prediction that Facebook's future profits will be bigger than several supermarket chains' combined. If you have reason to believe that is false, try and short $x worth of Facebook stock while buying $x worth of UK supermarkets stock. (Actually it's a bit more complicated than that in practice due to different currencies etc, so don't do it at home.)
- metatronscube 14y agoWell, im not going to be drawn into the usual tried, simplistic and stupid arguments tending to include some of the following baseless comments like 'Apple is an a-hole company' or 'The patent system needs reform' or 'Apple doesn't innovate' or 'Apple steals' or 'Apple is due a fall'....etc... Grow up. I suggest you visit /r/circlejerk and start a conversation there with some like minded folk, you will probably feel more at home. Truth is, Apple's market capital, EV and other measures are all topping and for good reason. People (lots of them) like their products and find greater value in them compared to other technology companies. I will say that Apple is more valuable to me than any of those other companies there. I have always used Apple computers. They have supported me through school, university, several years of research and all the jobs I have ever worked. Apple and MS create value and innovate, the others don't. Apple, MS and IBM are the kinds of companies that wont be going anywhere for quite a while, and if you think otherwise you are living in a fantasy world.
- calciphus 14y agoMarket cap is a nearly useless measure, especially on a large company. Apple's stock price is based not on current or even future value, but on being big and a low-risk investment for mutual funds and other institutional investors. Can we stop pretending it's a measure of success, value, or consumer preference? Let's end this silliness. Do we really believe Apple is more valuable than Google + Microsoft? Do we really think they impact more users, or have a greater reach than those two companies combined? Nearly every computer in the world runs Windows, and Google organizes the world's information and delivers it to more people than anyone else. Apple sells phones, and occasionally a computer, but not very many of either relative to their markets. Roughly 60% of their valuation and revenue come from a rapidly-aging product in a mature market. If I were on Apple's board, I'd be terrified of what that stock price represents - that my job is now only to continue existing. Not to do great things, not to risk everything on a new product, and not to have vision or leadership. Just to continue existing.
- dthrivepod 14y agoProfit seems to be priority. Innovation led to this profit. Apple=innovation