Apple’s Value Drops From $3T to Under $2T in Year

Apple’s market capitalization dropped below $2 trillion a year after hitting $3 trillion.

Reuters reported Tuesday (Jan. 3) that the company’s stock slipped 4% on Tuesday — the first trading day of the new year — and added that Apple became the first firm to hit the $3 trillion landmark on Jan. 3, 2022.

The report attributed Tuesday’s drop to the stock’s rating being downgraded due to a disruption to production in China.

This is the first time since 2021 that Apple’s market valuation has dipped below $2 trillion, according to the report.

The drop continues a trend seen over the last year by not only Apple but also other leading technology companies.

The top 10 tech stocks — the tech companies that were the biggest in terms of their market cap at the end of 2022 — lost a combined $4.6 trillion in market valuation last year, Seeking Alpha reported Saturday (Dec. 31).

During 2022, Apple recorded the third-biggest loss in market valuation among the companies in this group — $755 billion — behind only Amazon, which saw its market cap drop by $856 billion, and Google’s parent company Alphabet, which recorded a decline of $787 billion, according to the report.

The report attributed these widespread declines in market capitalization in the tech sector to delays in spending by consumers, supply chain issues, China’s challenges with COVID-19, job cuts and a continuous stream of bad news that impacted market confidence.

Similarly, PYMNTS reported throughout the year on the “terrible 2022” seen by connected economy and tech stocks.

PYMNTS’ CE 100 Index showed that this group of stocks finished the year 35.7% lower than they started it — a rough patch that marked the worst overall market performance since the financial crisis of 2008.

The CE 100 Index stocks were hit by inflation, rate hikes and Wall Street worries over spending, profits and slowing top-line growth.

This was quite a turnaround from the previous year. When Apple hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion a year ago, during the first day of trading in 2022, it had tripled its valuation in less than four years.

As PYMNTS reported at the time, the tech giant had become the first publicly traded U.S. company to hit $1 trillion in market cap on Aug. 2, 2018, and went on to hit a $2 trillion valuation on Aug. 19, 2020.