Apple remains the largest company in the world, but the battle is on for No. 2, as Microsoft has rallied to be neck and neck with Amazon in terms of market capitalization.
The two Washington state-based companies are within one percentage point of each other, with a market cap of about $723 billion, thanks to a week-long rally in Microsoft shares coupled with a slump in Amazon shares, reported 24/7 Wall St. Apple’s market cap remains well ahead of its two competitors at about $850 billion.
Microsoft, once considered an also-ran in the computing world, continues to have strong market position in enterprise software, personal computing and tablet hardware and software, as well as with its popular Xbox gaming system. The company also has been benefiting from its cloud business, so much so that last month analysts at Morgan Stanley predicted Microsoft could rally to a $1 trillion market cap in a year, according to a report from CNNMoney.
It’s the cloud that’s also powering Amazon shares, which are still up more than 50 percent from a year ago, despite a recent 6 percent dip in shares. Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos predicts his company’s cloud revenue will surpass its eCommerce business, according to the 24/7 Wall St. report. Amazon and Microsoft combined had 46 percent of the global cloud infrastructure market in 2017, according an industry analyst at Canalys.
Helping boost Microsoft’s image in the market is the fact that it makes profits on every major business segment it operates, while Amazon has small or nonexistent margins on its core eCommerce business, said 24/7 Wall St. Amazon North America had an operating income of $2.9 billion on $106 billion in revenue, while Amazon International lost $3.1 billion on revenue of $54 billion.
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