“This past week was a monumental time for Apple Inc.,” Jon C. Ogg writes for 24/7 Wall St. “With a close of $101.32 and a whopping $606.7 billion market cap… the market valuation now puts Apple at worth more than General Electric Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. combined — with an extra $100 billion in market cap to boot!”
“GE is the top conglomerate, outside of Berkshire Hathaway, and Walmart is the world’s largest retailer. Apple made more than GE and Walmart combined in net income last year, despite sales expectations being less than half of Walmart and only about 20% higher than GE,” Ogg writes. “Apple’s employee headcount is one-sixth that of GE and one-40th that of Walmart.”
Read more in the full article here.
Apple would be my favorite company in the world if their products were not mostly made in China. Porsche is my favorite company until they globalize their 911 series, then I’ll reevaluate. Apples programming is in decline, probably due to hiring “diversity” rather than those who would improve apple processes. For example, move and scale does not work on mobile devices while setting photos for desktop and lock screens. Many recent scripts have increased the number of steps required to complete the task, like attaching a photo to email. I find myself sending apple feedback every other day with things that are wrong and are very simple… Like when you search in the finder for a word, that exact word doesn’t show up until halfway through the search results. The list goes on and on. Apple programming gets closer to Microsoft day by day.
Move and scale work while setting photos on mine, did it very recently.
Don’t know what you’re doing wrong.
None of my mobile devices allow me to set the photo without the photo enlarging to fit screen again. I’m using 7.1.2. iPhone 4s, iPad 3. If you pinch a wide photo, the photo jumps back to the original. You can only zoom in to a photo. You might want to check this again as my father has the same problem on his iPhone 5s and iPad 4.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but write up bugs with very specific steps at bugreport.apple.com
Oh and you can’t drag items off the dock any more. It is one thing after another with apple. They are going the wrong way. I could give examples all day long. The simple thing which made apple are being left by the wayside.
Yes, you can’t accidentally drag an item from the dock and have it poof into oblivion, which I’m sure confused the hell out of new users. You CAN right click, option and remove from dock. Is it really all that difficult for you?
Porsche is now a sub of Volkswagen AG.
http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/content/en/brands_and_products.html
German autoworkers make a combined pay/benefits package worth roughly $65/hour (US). Audi just broke ground in Mexico for a new plant, BMW and Mercedes are already building in the US and/or Mexico.
At some point some products carrying the Porsche logo will be sourced in North America, Mexican labor runs about $10/hour (US) pay and benefits.
The Porsche Cayenne is already built by VW in Bratislava.
Consider them Globalized.
Go back and read my post.
BMW X3 is made in one of the Carolina’s.
There was a blog called “Apple is worth more than…”, which compared the market cap of Apple with various other things (Apollo space programme, the US Interstate highway system, the global consumption of coffee, etc). The author seems to have abandoned it some two years ago, but the data from back then is still on the blog (google it if you wish, I can’t be bothered…).
What is the largest evaluation for a single company in the US, in history, adjusted for inflation? Didn’t Microsoft hit $600 b in the past? Isn’t there a brick wall for Market Cap, historically speaking?
I would be cool for Apple to surmount all of that.
I don’t know those answers, but I saw Apple hit $610b at one point today.
Apple supposedly has a long way to go. I had heard that due to inflation, Apple would have to have an adjusted market cap of $800 billion to a trillion dollars to equal what Microsoft was worth at its highest point. What’s really unfair is that at the time Microsoft’s P/E had ballooned as high as 78 in 1999, so Apple is really earning its market cap with a P/E of 16 or so. Apple shareholders will never get the sort of break now that Microsoft shareholders got in 1999. I doubt we’ll see a P/E of 18. Dammit!
In an unbiased market Apple could probably reach a market cap of a trillion dollars but I believe that Wall Street will simply compress Apple’s P/E ratio so that it can’t possibly reach that amount. Keep watching Apple’s P/E after it starts selling the next iPhone and the wearable device. I’m willing to bet the P/E stays well under 17.
I just did the math…
Microsoft peaked at $616.3 Billion in December 1999. That would be worth $881.35 Billion today.
PetroChina broke $1 Trillion, but that was briefly when it had its IPO in 2007 and it’s since dropped to $262 Billion.
It gets a little bit fuzzy though when you start talking about inflation, especially when average market P/E is considered. When Microsoft peaked, it’s P/E ratio was 55. The market average was about twice what it is today and about 3 times what Apple’s P/E ratio is.
It’s also worth noting that while Apple’s stock is at an all-time high, its market cap is not. This is due to things like share buy-backs. This is going to be another variable putting pressure on Apple against hitting $1 Trillion.
Definitely as Apple grows, the compression on the P/E will increase, that’s to be expected, but there’s definitely a lower boundary there that will allow the stock to continue upwards.
How stupid to compare a tech co. in full flight to long stay companies like GE and Walmart. Walmart is a discount operator and GE is so spread out that God only knows how much profit they bury into R&D. Apple is about to make similar mistakes to those witnessed at MSFT and Sony. Too many new products in one cycle will drive huge numbers but the day is coming soon where consumers will stop consuming just for the sake of Apple profits.
“consumers will stop consuming just for the sake of Apple profits.”
when have consumers EVER ‘consumed for the sake of Apple’s profits’?
That’s the most bizarro statement I’ve heard in a while. A consumer says “Honey I’m going to buy an iMac to give Apple big profits” ???????? LOL.
No consumer shops apple in the desire to enrich Apple, they buy Apple stuff because simply : IT’S THE BEST THERE IS.
It’s rather sad that among those three companies of GE Wal-Mart and Apple, only Apple is always said to be on a death watch. The other two companies are considered too important to fail. However, it’s said Apple is considered too big and most likely to fail.