Technology

Animation: The Biggest Tech Companies by Market Cap Over 23 Years

Published

6 years ago

March 18, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

The business world is certainly not a static one.

In the past, we’ve shown that the market leaders in the most stable industries are unlikely to keep their leadership positions over long periods of time.

But limit your window to just the dynamic world of tech and you’ll see an even more extreme example of this inherent volatility. Sometimes companies are able to separate from the rest of the pack for days or months, but it’s never an advantage that lasts for long.

Biggest Tech Companies by Market Cap

Today’s animation was originally posted to Reddit by /r/TheNerdistRedditor and captures the crazy world of tech valuations for public companies.

Watch the intense 1 minute animation below:

Note: the data here only lists companies traded on U.S. exchanges, and does not show every single valuation point.

Over just 23 years, the company topping the list flips eight separate times – and if you were to get more granular with the numbers (looking at daily valuations, for example), you’d see it happen far more often.

Today’s Market Cap Leaders

As we noted above, company valuations are constantly changing – and back in early September 2018, both Apple and Amazon even topped the $1 trillion milestone for a short period of time.

Using the same criteria as the above animation, which is based on U.S. listed companies, here are the top 10 tech companies based on data at time of publication:

Rank	Company	Ticker(s)	Market Cap (March 18, 2019)
#1	Microsoft	MSFT	$902 billion
#2	Apple	AAPL	$887 billion
#3	Amazon	AMZN	$856 billion
#4	Alphabet	GOOG, GOOGL	$824 billion
#5	Alibaba	BABA	$471 billion
#6	Facebook	FB	$458 billion
#7	Intel	INTC	$243 billion
#8	Cisco	CSCO	$236 billion
#9	Oracle	ORCL	$192 billion
#10	Netflix	NFLX	$159 billion

Based on March 18, 2019 data

This is not a comprehensive list globally, as it misses companies like Tencent which are listed on other exchanges such as the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Based on recent HKD/USD conversion rates, it’s estimated that Tencent would be roughly worth $450 billion today – good enough for 7th on the list.

Regardless, since change is the only constant in the tech world, it’s fair to say that the above list of the biggest tech companies will likely be much different in just a few months time.