Market cap of big five tech companies surge 46% to $7.1tr

• Besides Apple and Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet also joined the $1 trillion market cap club this year.

Dubai: World’s leading technology companies have been remarkably unaffected by the effects of the coronavirus outbreak when compared to other sectors.

Covid-19 has given a boost by forcing millions of people to work from home and shop online amid the pandemic and the big five – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook posted double-digit revenue growth for the nine months of the current year and also witnessed an impressive market cap growth this year.

According to data presented by StockApps.com, the combined market capitalisation of the big five companies surged by 46 per cent year to date to $7.1 trillion as investors flocked to the tech sector.

According to Yahoo Finance data, the combined market capitalisation of big five amounted to over $4.9 trillion in December 2019. After the stock market crash caused by the coronavirus outbreak, this figure dropped to $4.5 trillion in March.

However, the market cap recovered during the second quarter and hit over $6 trillion in June, a 24 per cent jump in six months. Statistics show this figure increased by more than $1 trillion since then, reaching over $7.1 trillion at the end of last week.

Covid has been a blessing in disguise

The Yahoo Finance data showed Apple’s market cap jumped by 56 per cent since the beginning of this year.

In December 2019, the combined value of stocks of the US tech giant stood at nearly $1.3 trillion. Since then, this figure increased by $730 billion, reaching $2 trillion last week, and pushing the company far ahead of last year’s leader Microsoft.

Microsoft market cap jumped by 36 per cent year to date, growing from over $1 trillion in December 2019 to $1.64 trillion last week. The company also reported $110.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2020, 13 per cent more than the same period a year ago.

Amazon witnessed the most significant market cap increase in 2020, with the total value of its shares soaring by 80 per cent year to date.

In December 2019, Amazon market capitalisation stood at around $920 billion. Over the last eleven months, it jumped by almost $740 billion to reach $1.66 trillion last week.

Alphabet’s market cap rose by 12 per cent since the beginning of the year, growing from $921 billion in December to over $1 trillion last week. 

Facebook witnessed a 42 per cent increase in market capitalisation since the beginning of the year. The combined value of all Facebook stocks rose from $585 billion in December 2019 to $835 billion last week.

Besides Apple and Microsoft as the two largest tech companies by market capitalisation, Amazon and Alphabet also joined the $1 trillion club this year, despite the Covid-19 crisis.