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Google parent Alphabet passes Apple as biggest company -- now what?

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Both Google's and Apple's size is based on a HUGELY inflated stock market more than anything else.

As well as crafty off shore tax evasion, AND cheap labor based production.

Course you won't read anything about THAT in these media love-fest "press releases."

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Ironically, Apple in its past quarter reported the largest quarterly profit in history of $18.4 billion.

Alphabet’s quarterly profit rose five percent to $4.92 billion on the back of strong online advertising revenue, particularly from searches done by holiday season shoppers using smartphones or tablets.

=From profit alone Apple is 3+ times bigger.

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The next US bubble to burst is technology. As gajinfo has pointed out Apple and Google are grossly overvalued and, in particular, Apple's growth engine is very limited.

Profits are probably the least accurate way to measure a company's size. For example, BP Plc (British Petroleum Plc) posted a loss of US$-6.8 billion. If a company selling tissue boxes posts a profit of US$500,000, does it make it a bigger company than BP Plc?

The size of a company should primarily be assessed on revenues, and the value of assets and liabilities. This means Samsung is a larger company than Apple and Google combined. Heck, Samsung is even larger than Toyota and Volkswagen.

But, there are companies even bigger than this. They include Walmart, Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.

Unless Apple finds a new growth engine soon, it will follow the same path as IBM did back in the 1990s. Apple's dependence on the iPhone is starting to scare investors away, hence why it's stock value has dropped 30% since May 2015.

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Google parent Alphabet passes Apple as biggest company -- now what?

Well Google is back behind Apple. Alphabet is trading at $726.95, a decrease of 4.93 percent compared to where it was, giving it a market capitalization of $499.94 billion. Apple, on the other hand, increased by 1.98 percent and was trading at $96.35 at close, giving it a market capitalization of $534.22 billion.

Which means that all those pseudo analysts and the media talking about this and making a big deal of it is just ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is listening them calling Apple in decline.

Both Google's and Apple's size is based on a HUGELY inflated stock market more than anything else.

Only Google in fact. But beyond that, they are still more than stock market, you know they are people using their brain to produce something. You know creating things using intelligence.

As well as crafty off shore tax evasion, AND cheap labor based production.

Yes sure, the usual big US companies are just the devil, blah, blah. Not only what you refer to is factually wrong because things are more complicated than that but also again, people like you and me are working in these companies. Your know, jobs.... You can't just see things from on side, this is silly.

This means Samsung is a larger company than Apple and Google combined.

You made me laugh thanks. Now, shall we compare?

Apple last quarter: 1) $75.9 billion in revenue. 2) $18.4 billion in profit. 3) Apple has nearly $216 billion in cash.

Samsung last quarter: 1) $44 billion in revenue. 2) $2.7 billion in profit. 3) Its possession of cash is estimated under $50 after debt.

So which one is larger again? Next time be sure to check your facts.

On top of that, it's strange that you take Samsung as an example given their weird culture of stealing ideas from others. They wouldn't be in the modern mobile business if they would not have ripped off Apple products. Hardly a model of company worth referring to.

But, there are companies even bigger than this. They include Walmart, Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.

Again you are getting it wrong....

Apple finds a new growth engine soon, it will follow the same path as IBM did back in the 1990s.

You better apply this advise to Samsung who saw its mobile business collapsed for the last two years or so. Their tactic of always copying what Apple does is not working anymore, people have noticed by now. Samsung must be happy though that Apple still uses its chip foundries to produce its A-series chips.

And you seem to completely miss IBM situation by the way, so a quick comparison should help you see things better: 1) IBM market cap: 120.95B. 2) Samsung market cap: $136.9.

I dont see with these numbers that IBM is in an awfully worse situation compared to Samsung, meaning that IBM still counts.

Apple's dependence on the iPhone is starting to scare investors away, hence why it's stock value has dropped 30% since May 2015.

The dependence argument is non sense because it's used with hypocrisy only with Apple. You could say the same with Samsung for its mobile business, Microsoft for Windows or Google for ads. The stock value is not the grail for everything, and the only reason that it has decreased is that it is based on speculation for incessant growth rather than on how really the company is doing.

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Peter Payne: That isn't true... apple makes more profit but google makes more money. The market only seems to care about the former.

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"Now what?" -- easy to answer that one -- ahh, continue to do well??

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Apple has the Safari web browser (search) and Google is the default search engine with SiRi having Bing (Microsoft) as the default. Other options for Safari are Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo.

You have companies like Amazon.com that are huge sellers (revenue) with little historical profit. Apple stock also pays a dividend. I like Samsung and their phones are some of the best sellers. =Huge fan of the Galaxy Note phones and Tablets.

With all this cheap (low interest) money the stock market is ripe for speculation (long/shorts/binary options) so these traders need volatility to make these bets pay off.

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Wait until Apple launches its own search engine...

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@WesternerJapan87, you know nothing, Jon Snow. Apple trades at around 10x earnings, because everyone is sure that a) Apple will go out of business within the next quarter and more specifically b) we got burned by Sony, becoming the biggest thing in the world then flaming out, why should we trust that Apple won't do that?

Google makes way less money than Apple does, and owning the popular Android OS (which makes them almost nothing) is way less valuable than iOS, as far as I'm concerned.

Buying more AAPL if it dips any more.

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