This Fall, Apple Has A Shot At Becoming The Most Valuable Company In The World
In January, we noted that Apple surged past an amazing $300 billion market cap, making them by far the most valuable tech company in the world. In fact, the valuation made them the second most valuable company in the world period.
Context & Ripple Effects
The arc here started last September, when Apple passed PetroChina to become the second-largest stock in the world, then pushed through a $300 billion market cap in January 2011 — making it by far the most valuable tech company and second overall. TechCrunch's argument is that the remaining gap to the top spot could close this fall, on the strength of product catalysts rather than any re-rating.
Those catalysts are all still unconfirmed as of mid-July: an next-generation iPhone rumored to arrive by end of summer, a reported $350 low-priced iPhone aimed at expanding the addressable market, and reports that Apple is close to putting the iPhone on China Mobile, China's largest state-owned carrier. Confirmed near-term items — OS X Lion Golden Masters already at retail stores and the ITC judge's initial determination against HTC's Android products — round out a fall slate that would support the valuation case.
First-order effects
- If the rumored iPhone refresh lands on schedule alongside the reported $350 model, Apple's unit volumes and revenue run-rate accelerate into the holiday quarter, directly closing the market-cap gap to the world's most valuable company.
- The confirmed ITC initial determination that HTC infringes two Apple patents puts immediate legal and commercial pressure on a major Android licensee right as the new iPhone cycle begins.
Second-order effects
- A China Mobile distribution deal would open China's largest carrier base to the iPhone, forcing rival handset makers to compete for subsidized placement on state-owned networks rather than competing device-by-device.
- Android vendors facing Apple patent rulings may shift toward designs that avoid contested features or toward licensing settlements, raising the effective cost of competing with the iPhone.
Third-order effects
- A consumer hardware-and-software company overtaking the traditional leaders at the top of the global market-cap table marks a structural handoff: equity value concentrating around integrated consumer ecosystems rather than commodity producers — a concentration pattern likely to define the decade's rankings.
The trend: Technology companies are displacing resource and industrial incumbents at the top of the global market-cap rankings, with each product cycle widening the gap.