Technology

A Visual History of the Largest Companies by Market Cap (1999-Today)

Published

3 years ago

June 21, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

A Visual History of the Largest Companies by Market Cap (1999-Today)

A Visual History of the Largest Companies by Market Cap

The macro narrative that underlies the market is constantly under revision.

While this is partially a function of shifts in investor sentiment, it’s also driven by game-changing events as well as much more structural market forces.

For example, how does the macro narrative change after a commodity price crash? What about when the unprecedented scale of technology is truly understood by the market?

An Evolving Narrative

In this week’s chart, we look at how the big picture narrative has changed over time by using a very simple approach.

We have visualized the market capitalizations of the 10 largest public companies in the world over five-year intervals from 1999 until today, and it gives us a series of snapshots of what the market was “thinking” during these specific periods.

Not only is it evident as certain industries rise to prominence, but there are also some interesting individual stories to follow. We can see iconic companies – such as Apple – ascend into the public consciousness, while others fall off the radar completely.

Year	Description	Top Company	Who Dominates Top 10?
1999	Dotcom Bubble	Microsoft ($583B)	Five tech companies in the mix
2004	Post-Bubble	GE ($319B)	Diverse mix of companies by industry
2009	Financial Crisis	PetroChina ($367B)	Six non-U.S. companies make list
2014	$100 Oil	Apple ($560B)	Last year for oil companies, tech starts ascending
2019	Big Tech Era	Microsoft ($1,050B)	Seven companies are tech

The composition of the top 10 changes in each of the snapshots above, and this simple approach helps capture the market narrative for each timeframe.

During the Dotcom Bubble, you can see that half of the list was dominated by tech companies. This was short-lived, and the years 2004, 2009, and 2014 have much more diverse lists.

You can also see the impact of the financial crisis on U.S. company valuations. In 2009, there is an equal distribution of Chinese and American companies. Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands) and Petrobras (Brazil) help round out the top 10.

Finally, over the last five years, you can see the impact of lower oil prices and the growing scale of tech. Back in 2014, Exxon Mobil was the second largest company in the world by a solid margin, but today it’s been displaced by companies like Facebook, Amazon, Tencent, and Alibaba.

The Big Tech Era

Here is the current top 10 list of the world’s largest companies by market cap:

Rank	Company	Industry	Market Cap
#1	🇺🇸 Microsoft	Tech	$1,050 billion
#2	🇺🇸 Amazon	Tech	$943 billion
#3	🇺🇸 Apple	Tech	$920 billion
#4	🇺🇸 Alphabet	Tech	$778 billion
#5	🇺🇸 Facebook	Tech	$546 billion
#6	🇺🇸 Berkshire Hathaway	Diversified	$507 billion
#7	🇨🇳 Alibaba	Tech	$435 billion
#8	🇨🇳 Tencent	Tech	$431 billion
#9	🇺🇸 Visa	Financial	$379 billion
#10	🇺🇸 Johnson & Johnson	Consumer Goods	$376 billion

In total, the five biggest tech giants brought in a combined $801.5 billion in revenue last year, and $139 billion in net income.

The Staying Power of Microsoft

With a valuation today of just over $1 trillion, Microsoft is again the world’s largest company by market capitalization.

In this way, the above lists come full circle, since Microsoft was also the biggest company in 1999.

While the software giant experienced short periods where it did drop out of favor, Microsoft was the only company to make the list in our five snapshots above.

Related Topics:investing markets market cap largest companies featured

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Technology

Apple’s Colossal Market Cap as it Hits $3 Trillion

Apple’s market cap recently hit $3 trillion. To put that scale into context, this visualization compares Apple to European indexes.

Creator Program

Published

6 days ago

January 10, 2022

Nick Routley

Apple’s Colossal Market Cap in Context

In January of 2019, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $700 billion.

While this was perceived as a colossal figure at the time, when we fast forward to today, that valuation seems a lot more modest. Since then, Apple has surged to touch a $3 trillion valuation on January 3rd, 2022.

To gauge just how monstrous of a figure this is, consider that Apple is no longer comparable to just companies, but to countries and even entire stock indexes. This animation from James Eagle ranks the growth in Apple’s market cap alongside top indexes from the UK, France, and Germany.

Let’s take a closer look.

Apple Takes On Europe

The three indexes Apple is compared to are heavyweights in their own right.

The FTSE 100 consists of giants like HSBC and vaccine producer AstraZeneca, while the CAC 40 Index is home to LVMH, which made Bernard Arnault the richest man in the world for a period of time last year.

Nonetheless, Apple’s market cap exceeds that of the 100 companies in the FTSE, as well as the 40 in each of the CAC and DAX indexes.

Stock/Index	Market Cap ($T)	Country of Origin
Apple	$3.00T	🇺🇸
FTSE 100	$2.90T	🇬🇧
CAC 40 Index	$2.76T	🇫🇷
DAX 40 (Dax 30) Index*	$2.50T	🇩🇪

*Germany’s flagship DAX Index expanded from 30 to 40 constituents in September 2021.

It’s important to note, that while Apple’s growth is stellar, European companies have simultaneously seen a decline in their share of the overall global stock market, which helps make these comparisons even more eye-catching.

For example, before 2005, publicly-traded European companies represented almost 30% of global stock market capitalization, but those figures have been cut in half to just 15% today.

Here are some other approaches to measure Apple’s dominance.

Apple’s Revenue Per Minute vs Other Tech Giants

Stepping away from market capitalization, another unique way to measure Apple’s success is in how much sales they generate on a per minute basis. In doing so, we see that they generate a massive $848,090 per minute.

Here’s how Apple revenue per minute compares to other Big Tech giants:

Company	Revenue Per Minute
Amazon	$955,517
Apple	$848,090
Alphabet (Google)	$433,014
Microsoft	$327,823
Facebook	$213,628
Tesla	$81,766
Netflix	$50,566

Furthermore, Apple’s profits aren’t too shabby either: their $20.5 billion in net income last quarter equates to $156,000 in profits per minute.

How Apple Compares To Countries

Lastly, we can compare Apple’s market cap to the GDP of countries.

Country (excluding Apple)	Total Value ($T)
Apple	$3.0T
Italy	$2.0T
Brazil	$1.8T
Canada	$1.7T
Russia	$1.7T
South Korea	$1.6T
Australia	$1.4T
Spain	$1.4T
Mexico	$1.3T
Indonesia	$1.1T

What might be most impressive here is that Apple’s market cap eclipses the GDP of major developed economies, such as Canada and Australia. That means the company is more valuable than the entire economic production of these countries in a calendar year.

That’s some serious scale.

Technology

Companies Gone Public in 2021: Visualizing IPO Valuations

Tracking the companies that have gone public in 2021, their valuation, and how they did it.

Published

1 week ago

January 7, 2022

Omri Wallach

Companies Gone Public in 2021: Visualizing Valuations

Despite its many tumultuous turns, last year was a productive year for global markets, and companies going public in 2021 benefited.

From much-hyped tech initial public offerings (IPOs) to food and healthcare services, many companies with already large followings have gone public this year. Some were supposed to go public in 2020 but got delayed due to the pandemic, and others saw the opportunity to take advantage of a strong current market.

This graphic measures 68 companies that have gone public in 2021 — including IPOs, SPACs, and Direct Listings—as well as their subsequent valuations after listing.

Who’s Gone Public in 2021?

Historically, companies that wanted to go public employed one main method above others: the initial public offering (IPO).

But companies going public today readily choose from one of three different options, depending on market situations, associated costs, and shareholder preference:

Initial Public Offering (IPO): A private company creates new shares which are underwritten by a financial organization and sold to the public.
Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC): A separate company with no operations is created strictly to raise capital to acquire the company going public. SPACs are the fastest method of going public, and have become popular in recent years.
Direct Listing: A private company enters a market with only existing, outstanding shares being traded and no new shares created. The cost is lower than that of an IPO, since no fees need to be paid for underwriting.

The majority of companies going public in 2021 chose the IPO route, but some of the biggest valuations resulted from direct listings.

Listing Date	Company	Valuation ($B)	Listing Type
08-Jan-21	Clover Health	$7.0	SPAC
13-Jan-21	Affirm	$11.9	IPO
13-Jan-21	Billtrust	$1.3	SPAC
14-Jan-21	Poshmark	$3.0	IPO
15-Jan-21	Playtika	$11.0	IPO
21-Jan-21	Hims and Hers Health	$1.6	SPAC
28-Jan-21	Qualtrics	$15.0	IPO
09-Feb-21	Metromile	-	SPAC
11-Feb-21	Bumble	$8.2	IPO
26-Feb-21	ChargePoint Holdings	-	SPAC
03-Mar-21	Oscar Health	$7.9	IPO
10-Mar-21	Roblox	$30.0	Direct Listing
11-Mar-21	Coupang	$60.0	IPO
23-Mar-21	DigitalOcean	$5.0	IPO
25-Mar-21	VIZIO	$3.9	IPO
26-Mar-21	ThredUp	$1.3	IPO
31-Mar-21	Coursera	$4.3	IPO
01-Apr-21	Compass	$8.0	IPO
14-Apr-21	Coinbase	$86.0	Direct Listing
15-Apr-21	AppLovin	$28.6	IPO
21-Apr-21	UiPath	$35.0	IPO
21-Apr-21	DoubleVerify	$4.2	IPO
05-May-21	The Honest Company	$1.4	IPO
07-May-21	Lightning eMotors	$0.82	SPAC
07-May-21	Blade Air Mobility	$0.83	SPAC
19-May-21	Squarespace	$7.4	Direct Listing
19-May-21	Procore	$9.6	IPO
19-May-21	Oatly	$10.0	IPO
26-May-21	ZipRecruiter	$2.4	Direct Listing
26-May-21	FIGS	$4.4	IPO
01-Jun-21	SoFi	$8.7	SPAC
02-Jun-21	BarkBox	$1.6	SPAC
08-Jun-21	Marqueta	$15.0	IPO
10-Jun-21	Monday.com	$7.5	IPO
16-Jun-21	WalkMe	$2.5	IPO
22-Jun-21	Sprinklr	$3.7	IPO
24-Jun-21	Confluent	$9.1	IPO
29-Jun-21	Clear	$4.5	IPO
30-Jun-21	SentinelOne	$10.0	IPO
30-Jun-21	LegalZoom	$7.0	IPO
30-Jun-21	Didi Chuxing	$73.0	IPO
16-Jul-21	Blend	$4	IPO
21-Jul-21	Kaltura	$1.24	IPO
21-Jul-21	DISCO	$2.5	IPO
21-Jul-21	Couchbase	$1.4	IPO
23-Jul-21	Vtex	$3.5	IPO
23-Jul-21	Outbrain	$1.1	IPO
28-Jul-21	Duolingo	$3.7	IPO
28-Jul-21	Riskified	$3.3	IPO
29-Jul-21	Robinhood	$32.0	IPO
22-Sep-21	Toast	$22.0	IPO
22-Sep-21	Freshworks	$10.1	IPO
23-Sep-21	Remitly	$6.9	IPO
28-Sep-21	Amplitude	$6.4	Direct Listing
29-Sep-21	Warby Parker	$6.0	Direct Listing
14-Oct-21	GitLab	$11.0	IPO
27-Oct-21	Rent the Runway	$1.7	IPO
29-Oct-21	Udemy	$4.0	IPO
03-Nov-21	Allbirds	$2.2	IPO
04-Nov-21	NerdWallet	$1.2	IPO
10-Nov-21	Rivian	$66.5	IPO
10-Nov-21	Expensify	$2.2	IPO
11-Nov-21	Winc	-	IPO
11-Nov-21	Weave	-	IPO
17-Nov-21	UserTesting	-	IPO
17-Nov-21	Braze	$6.0	IPO
18-Nov-21	Sweetgreen	$3.0	IPO
09-Dec-21	Nubank	$41.0	IPO

Though there are many well-known names in the list, one of the biggest through lines continues to be the importance of tech.

A majority of 2021’s newly public companies have been in tech, including multiple mobile apps, websites, and online services. The two biggest IPOs so far were South Korea’s Coupang, an online marketplace valued at $60 billion after going public, and China’s ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, the year’s largest post-IPO valuation at $73 billion.

And there were many apps and services going public through other means as well. Gaming company Roblox went public through a direct listing, earning a valuation of $30 billion, and cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has earned the year’s largest valuation so far, with an $86 billion valuation following its direct listing.

Big Companies Going Public in 2022

As with every year, some of the biggest companies going public were lined up for the later half.

Tech will continue to be the talk of the markets. Payment processing firm Stripe was setting up to be the year’s biggest IPO with an estimated valuation of $95 billion, but got delayed. Likewise, online grocery delivery platform InstaCart, which saw a big upswing in traction due to the pandemic, has been looking to go public at a valuation of at least $39 billion.

Of course, it’s common that potential public listings and offerings fall through. Whether they get delayed due to weak market conditions or cancelled at the last minute, anything can happen when it comes to public markets.

This post has been updated as of January 1, 2022.