Well, that was quick! In March we talked about the race between Apple, Amazon, Google and newcomer Microsoft to become the first US-based company valued at a trillion dollars. Four months have passed by swiftly and it seems Amazon, Google and Microsoft are now competing for second place as Apple have completed the race.
It doesn’t come as a complete surprise that Apple was first to reach the mark and though I’m not a big fan of Apple it’s hard to deny the impact they have had on technology over the last 20 years. Apple have turned their brand into a culture and it’s hard to hate on that. Apple’s share price rose to an incredible $207 per/share earlier this morning. To provide a bit of context of how impressive this is I’ll give an example of a few companies listed on the ZSE and their price per share at the time of writing:
| Company | Shares (US Cents) |
|---|---|
| Econet Wireless | 123.76 |
| Innscor Africa | 142.00 |
| OK Zimbabwe | 22.10 |
The gap is telling and I don’t bring it up to ridicule Zim companies but just to show the difference between companies that we consider big and a company that has just reached a trillion dollar valuation. Oh and by the way, Apple is not the first company to hit the trillion dollar mark globally. That was PetroChina back in 2007 but America being America, all headlines will probably note that Apple is the first without acknowledging the Chinese entity that crossed the line a decade ago.
Exponential growth…
According to the BBC, Apple shares have grown by over 1100% since the introduction of the iPhone back in 2007. If you go back as far as the inception of the company in in 1980 the shares have grown by over 2000%. You don’t have to be an investment guru to know that those numbers are not child’s play. Oh, and Zim has something in common with Apple as both were formed in 1980. I’m not too sure if we have witnessed 2000% growth in Zim or it’s actually the opposite.
Given the volatile nature of markets however, Apple may not stay valued at $1 trillion for long. The shares were soaring because of a better than expected set of results posted by Apple for the period between May and June. Once the noise has died down share price may see a slight drop and they may not remain at the trillion dollar mark.
It’s lonely at the top?
Apart from Apple it seems Amazon is also expected to reach the $1 trillion mark soon. They recently posted their Q2 results and they managed to achieve their highest ever quarterly profit and analysts think they will be joining Apple soon- in the event that there is no catatsrophe in their camp in the short term of course.
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