On Friday, the market capitalization of Microsoft increased to $2.73 trillion, only $90 billion shy of the market capitalization of Apple, which dropped to $2.82 trillion. With that, Microsoft is now very close to overtaking Apple to become the most valuable company in the world. The last time Microsoft surpassed Apple was on 17 November 2021. Since then, the gap between the market capitalizations of the two companies hasn’t been so small (as noted by Market Watch). So, this is a great chance for Microsoft to gain back its position.
While Microsoft is performing poorly in the hardware section (Surface devices), the company seems to be doing really well when it comes to artificial intelligence and gaming. In terms of AI, Microsoft is an exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI, whose products, such as ChatGPT, are currently in immense demand. As for gaming, Microsoft recently completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, and Xbox is gaining more and more popularity day by day, thanks to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox Game Pass.
Apple, on the other hand, hasn’t been doing well for the last few quarters. Lately, the demand for the its products, especially Mac and iPad devices, has gone down significantly due to increased competition and macroeconomic factors. As a result, the company posted a 5% year-over-year (YoY) decline in revenue. Analysts predict that things aren’t going to get any better anytime soon. In fact, they claim that the sales of iPhones might also take a hit as the iPhone 16 lineup might not be a big upgrade over the iPhone 15 series.
