Yep, Apple Rocketed Past Microsoft In Revenue This Past Quarter By Over $4 Billion
When Apple passed Microsoft in market cap this past May, the Microsoft fanboys were out in full force. “This means nothing.” “Microsoft still makes so much more money than Apple.” “Look at the revenues.”
Context & Ripple Effects
The argument has been running since Silicon Alley Insider asked in August 2009 whether Apple was 'the new Microsoft', and it sharpened when Apple passed Microsoft in market capitalization this past May. The standard rebuttal from Microsoft's defenders was that the crossover was cosmetic — Microsoft still generated far more quarterly revenue, so the valuation gap supposedly reflected froth rather than fundamentals.
This quarter removes that rebuttal. Both companies reported within days of each other, and Apple's revenue came in over $4 billion above Microsoft's — confirmed across outlets including BetaNews, which framed it as Microsoft beating consensus expectations but losing to Apple anyway. The last quantitative defense of Microsoft's position is gone; the debate now shifts entirely to growth rates and business-model quality.
First-order effects
- Apple now leads Microsoft on both of the metrics investors track — market cap since May and, as of this quarter's reports, raw quarterly revenue by over $4 billion — leaving Microsoft's supporters with no headline-number fallback.
- Microsoft still beat Wall Street's consensus estimates this quarter, so the loss is comparative, not operational — but the news cycle rewards the comparison, and Ballmer faces his next investor briefing having to defend a growth story against a company out-growing him.
Second-order effects
- Analyst attention pivots from 'who is bigger' to 'whose earnings are higher quality,' pressuring Microsoft to demonstrate growth beyond its Windows-and-Office licensing base while Apple's iPhone-driven expansion keeps resetting the benchmark each quarter.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the industry's scoreboard changes structurally: integrated hardware-plus-software ecosystems displace per-seat software licensing as the reference model for scale, and future crossovers between platform incumbents get judged on ecosystem revenue rather than license volume.
The trend: Consumer-device ecosystems are overtaking enterprise software licensing on every financial metric investors watch, turning the May market-cap crossover into a revenue crossover within six months.