Apple closes trading with $700B+ market cap

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-10/apple-closes-at-record-market-value-of-more-than-700-billion

by nerfhammer • 11 years ago

63 67 11 years ago

zachrose• 11 years ago

For scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28currency...

jameshart• 11 years ago

Wow - the closest number on that list is "Total assessed (taxable) market value of Manhattan real estate for FY 2014-2015" at $914.8 billion. That's the kind of order of magnitude of Apple's worth - one New York borough, containing the world's most valuable real estate.

(Sorry, but can't resist adding: Given that it's worth 30% more than Apple, I guess that's why they call NYC the Big Apple...)

startupfounder• 11 years ago

TIL Why NYC is called the Big Apple (Question is when will they switch names?)

hyperbovine• 11 years ago

The Japanese imperial palace in the heart of Tokyo was once estimated to be worth more than California. (As in, the State of.) Bubbles are a funny thing.

innguest• 11 years ago

It's called a bubble. Here's a company that sells grilled cheese out of 3 trucks, that has been valued at $100M: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-09/bubble-meet-25-mill...

Now let's watch the words "worth" and "value" be thrown around recklessly. :)

failed_ideas• 11 years ago

The only thing on the planet Apple doesn't have enough money to buy is itself. We MAY be in a bubble, but this is in no way an indication of that.

sliverstorm• 11 years ago

Consumer interest & willingness to open their wallets might be currently inflated. But even a year ago, Apple had $137 billion in actual assets. Their P/B ratio is a somewhat high but not insane 5.7

ceejayoz2• 11 years ago

Here's a company that sells grilled cheese out of 3 trucks, that has been valued at $100M.

With zero liquidity. http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GRLD/quote indicates trading volume of 800 shares and their shares were $0.10 until January 28th, upon which someone started trading a few hundred shares a day at about $6.

That's not a bubble, that's someone screwing with a tiny stock. Probably selling back and forth to themself.

hello_asdf• 11 years ago

Excuse my ignorance here, but why would someone sell back and forth to themselves?

bane4• 11 years ago

Here's a fun trick.

You and a friend start a couple "businesses".

You each sell 50% of your "stock" to each other for $xmillion. Since it's a stock swap, no money has to change hands but now both of your companies are valued at 2 x $xmillion and voila you're an instant paper millionaire.

You can play a similar game with paintings and both become instant hot vogue modern artists. Imagine your next piece going up for sale at auction "his last piece sold for $30 million". I've actually known a few artists doing something like this at low $ amounts (a $3000-$15000) in order to stir up interest in their work in local scenes. If you go to a show and see some pieces up, but marked "sold" with a price tag like this, it's usually to create buzz. The best part is they'll both have receipts of sale that legitimize the whole thing.

According to finance theory you're also creating market "value" without there needing to be any new currency circulated.

supercoder• 11 years ago

Apple's value is hardly speculative.

They make the most popular consumer products in the world, and make a huge amount of profit as a result.

tonyedgecombe• 11 years ago

It is a fickle market though, it won't last forever.

Keyframe• 11 years ago

The world’s largest company by market capitalization got a little bit bigger Tuesday.

Shouldn't that be "..largest PUBLIC company by market cap..."? Isn't Saudi Aramco's value in trillions for example?

abat• 11 years ago

Market cap implies public company because by definition private companies are not traded publicly on a market. It's the same way start ups have "valuations" and not "market caps".

ryan_j_naughton2• 11 years ago

private companies are not traded publicly on a market.

Incorrect. They aren't traded on an exchange, but they are certainly traded in a market. A market is any situation where people buy and sell to one another. Venture capitalists certainly buy shares in private companies. Similarly, a private car dealership, private family restaurant, etc can (and often are) sold from the original owner to a new owner. Thus, a market exists.

I think the term you are looking for is exchange. The distinction between a market and an exchange is an exchange creates more explicit rules on trading in order to make the goods traded commoditized.

For example, instead of buying corn at my farmers market where the differences in corn might matter for both price and quality (local, organic, some farmer just happens to grow more delicious corn), when you buy agricultural commodities from Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), each contract is equivalent. X many bushes of corn at Y price. By making rules on quality and standardizing the goods/contracts/etc, an exchange helps to bring about price discovery and ensure the goods are priced correctly.

But it isn't inherent that exchanges cause the true price to be found or that OTC[0] markets are inferior or less accurate. It depends on numerous factors for whether a share price is being valued correctly.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_(finance)

saryant• 11 years ago

IIRC their revenue is about 4x Apple's.

rgbrenner2• 11 years ago

actually, they averaged 95b/qtr last year vs apple's 75b last quarter. They have $36 trillion in assets (consisting of all of SAs oil and gas reserves + the state refining company that was merged in the 90s).

Considering the drop in oil prices lately, it's quite possible Apple's revenue exceeded Aramco's last quarter

megablast• 11 years ago

How do you measure the market cap of a non publicly traded company? It makes no sense.

logicallee• 11 years ago

last price per share paid (by an investor) times number of shares outstanding?

I don't see why valuation isn't just as good at market cap, if a bit less liquid. same idea.

ryan_j_naughton2• 11 years ago

It absolutely makes sense. All corporations have a market cap because they have shares outstanding and there is a price per share. We can disagree as to whether the share price is what it should be given the lack of trading liquidity, lack of transparency in their books, etc. Nevertheless, there is certainly a share price and a number of outstanding shares.

We can all argue whether Airbnb is worth $2B or $6B and Uber $40+ Billion, but these valuations aren't made up. They follow accounting rules.

One primary example is mark to market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark-to-market_accounting

Shivetya• 11 years ago

damn, if marketing doesn't prove its worth with these numbers. Yes they make good products but its obvious their margins are so damn high because their marketing has convinced people that it is worth it. (iphone/mac/airport owner.... so yeah)

Honestly though, I would love some other choices but they competition in general just sucks. For awhile android phones almost caught my attention but the pc world hasn't since my first 24 inch iMac. Tablet market is just, Apple.

arthurcolle• 11 years ago

I like my Kindle Fire HDX quite thoroughly so idk about that last statement.

zanny• 11 years ago

I swear by my Nexus tablets and I was one of the backers for the Jolla tablet. Nothing about an ipad or ipad mini is appealing to me, and the draconian lockdown and lack of control of my own hardware guarantees I will never own an Apple product.

And in my daily life I do not see many ipads. Only amongst those so ignorant to think tablets = Apple in the same way they think computers = Windows. There are plenty of Android tablets out there in use, a lot of them are in businesses now due to the significantly lower cost to adopt $100 - $200 tablets over ipad minis, combined with developer fees and the hoops to jump through with xcode licenses and ios developer licenses and all that bullshit.

modfodder2• 11 years ago

So it is your opinion that the people who buy iPads do so only out of ignorance and none out of preference for Apple's product?

In my daily life I see quite a few iPads, but rarely a Nexus, and then only amongst those that have severe psychological issues. Nothing from Google interests me with their insistence on seeing me as a slave to their income generating advertisements./s

pasta_2• 11 years ago

I love backhanded compliments about Apple's marketing. If marketing had the impact you seem to think it does, Samsung would be doing a whole lot better than they are.

soylentcola• 11 years ago

The fact that they have such a massive share of the market despite the mediocre quality of their products really is a testament to their marketing.

Even just among Android phones, their products are neither the most affordable, the most powerful, the most user-friendly, the best supported, or the best constructed but they have managed to become the go-to brand for people buying an Android handset.

Pretty much everyone I've met (yeah, anecdotes) with less of an unhealthy interest in consumer electronics than me defaults to "iPhone or Samsung" when looking at phones. Of the people I interact with most often, about 50% have Apple Phones, 45% have Samsungs, and the remaining 5% have Moto X's or Nexuses or other brands.

somedudethere• 11 years ago

I recently went to replace my HTC 1 M7. First I got a Moto G, but due to cell signal, and general quirks in lollipop I thought I would try a Samsung S5. Ugg. I don't know how people could stand all the non-standard stuff that samsung puts on there. So I decided to settle in with a Nexus 6. It was pretty good. But it just seemed empty. Maybe because I was used to using custom roms on One it just seemed like features were missing. I didn't want to install a custom rom on it because in the past I always just ended up with bugginess and quite frankly a custom roms are a cop out. I paid for something, the people I paid should give me a good experience not random people on the internet. But the app store, even though it gives users a plethora of customizations like lockscreens, locks, etc, they will never bring android up to the level of a unified experience of the iPhone.

So I went and got a 6+. I have to say since it was my first iPhone I was blown away. I was in the camp of "Why do I need to spend $1000 to do what this $200 moto g can do?" I really can't see how android users feel that any android device is as polished as the iphone. I guess its subjective but honestly >90% of people I know in silicon valley have an iphone. If the most tech centered place in the world all use iphones, I think that says something. Its more than just its the trendy cool thing to do. Its honestly a better experience and the professionals can see that. If I, an engineer in silicon valley, can't get android to do what I want when I want it, how can I expect the average user to master it? Maybe its because I have a higher standard for software and user design since I am in the business but everyday I find some subtle way that the iphone manages to impress me, a feeling I never got on android.

peterashford2• 11 years ago

Well, clearly you iPhone users are just better than the rest of us, after all.

eropple3• 11 years ago

For a differing opinion:

I tried an iPhone 6, moving away from a Nexus 5 and then a Moto X. I enjoyed many parts of it--Touch ID is cool, Apple Pay is cool--but I took it back two days later because the operating system expects you to have a thumb the size of Montana to do something as simple as going back a screen in the mail app and I found dealing with applications and getting the phone the way I wanted it (and I'm no iOS newbie, I had an iPhone 4 and have multiple iPads) was at best interminable, at worst impossible. I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. It's the first cell phone I've loved since the iPhone 4--unsurprising, as it borrows a lot from its design while being pretty unique and pleasant on its own. (The waterproofing is great, hiding the connectors during regular use is nice, having a real focus-stop camera button is brilliant. Also, it's bright orange. My Nexus 5 was bright red. This is kind of my thing.)

As far as your argumentum ad turtleneckum, I wouldn't give ninety percent of the people I know in Silicon Valley the time of day. Their choice of phone doesn't reflect on me or the world at large.

vacri4• 11 years ago

If the most tech centered place in the world all use iphones

It's a status signaller. It's like the Macbook Pro. From your reasoning, OSX must be the best OS out there given its popularity in SV, yet the grunt work for the vast majority of SV companies is done by linux - the stuff on the servers, making their money. Horses for courses, there is no One True OS.

It's also a massive overgeneralisation to say that the population of SV are essentially experts in phone design and UX. And if you think that the SV engineer is immune to fashion trends by dint of 'being professional', you'd be wrong. Witness the current fad of flat design, for example.

Then there's people like me, who see the 'better experience' as including things outside the phone. Supporting Apple supports their business model which suffocates open source and prevents tinkering. That's a worse experience for me.

peterashford2• 11 years ago

My partner has a Samsung Note tablet and is very happy with it as her primary device. So... I'll pass on the koolaid thanks =)

threeseed• 11 years ago

This again.

Marketing encourages people to take a look at their products. But if the products are terrible then nobody is going to buy them. Apple has had plenty of failures in the past despite good marketing e.g. Cube, many of the iMac variants.

The reason Apple does well is FOCUS. They keep their products lines simple which makes it easy for consumers to rationalise and easy for them to scale and improve.

IgorPartola• 11 years ago

Every product of theirs I own has two attributes that I prize: it works without much thought from me and it is well supported by Apple. Basically, an iPhone just works. There is no tweaking necessary. I have AppleCare. If I drop it and the screen shatters, I can get it replaced for cheap. Not many other phones can claim this.

vacri4• 11 years ago

What if the products are 'average' rather than 'terrible'? It's not like there's a binary value for quality.

modfodder2• 11 years ago

In one sentence you ascribe Apple's success to their marketing. In the next you wish Apple's competition released products on par with Apple's quality.

Could it not be that Apple's success has less to do with marketing and more to do with the lack of quality amongst it's competitors?

billforsternz• 11 years ago

I'd love to own an airport, man the money they make from parking fees alone ....

bane4• 11 years ago

Here's a fun comparison. That's within spitting distance of the GDP (PPP) of all of South Korea around the year 2000.

kralko• 11 years ago

I wonder how much of the stock growth is due to the investor program (stocks buybacks), how much is linked to the stock split (making the stock more affordable and potentially more liquid)?

Apple closes trading with $700B+ market cap

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