Could Apple be catching Microsoft as tech’s most valuable company?
CNBC says Apple is already in Microsoft’s rearview mirror, and could unseat the software giant within two years.
While Apple is currently valued at $180 billion and Microsoft at $250 billion, Apple’s business is growing fast while MS’s is not.
“The biggest overriding reason why the company still has room to run is that its business is growing,” Erick Maronak, chief investment officer for the Victory Large Cap Growth Fund, told CNBC. “The day they introduce the tablet, that’s going to drive a lot of earnings.” (Maronak’s fund owns shares in both companies.)
Maronak said he would “not be surprised to see Apple’s market cap approach Microsoft’s in the next two years, though he also likes the software company’s growth prospects.”
Apple is already has a similar market capitalization to Google, Microsoft’s other big rival. Apple has doubled annual revenues to $36.5 billion since 2005, CNBC notes, and has boosted it’s stock price by nearly 900 percent in the last decade. Microsoft’s stock has fallen 35 percent in the same period.
CoM’s Take: We’ve argued here many times that the next 20 years of personal computing will belong to the consumer, not the busines market. Apple’s ease-of-use, design chops and vertical integration put it far ahead of anyone else when it comes to delivering consumer-focused technology.
