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January 26, 2012
Apple tops Exxon as most valuable company
NEW YORK -- Apple nudged out oil giant ExxonMobil on Wednesday
to become the most valuable publicly-traded company in the
world.
The technology company's stock rose 6.3% to end at $446.66
a share, one day after Apple reported the best quarterly results
in history for a tech company. That spike pushed the company's
market value to $419 billion.
At that level, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has surpassed the
perennial champ, Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500), which has a market
value of $418 billion. Exxon's stock edged up 0.5% to $87.22
a share on Wednesday.
It remains to be seen how long Apple can maintain the title.
Apple briefly surpassed Exxon for the first time last August,
but the oil giant regained the top spot by the end of that
day.
Apple's stellar quarter included a 73% jump in sales to $46.3
billion, a tech industry record. The company said its fiscal
first-quarter profit more than doubled from a year earlier,
rising to $13 billion, or $13.87 per share.
It was one of the most profitable quarters ever for any U.S.
company, trailing only Exxon's record-setting $14.8 billion
quarter from the fall of 2008, when oil prices were at an
all-time high.
The oil company will report its quarterly results next week.
It's expected to have earned $1.95 a share in the fourth quarter,
up 6% from the same period last year, according to analysts
surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
The analysts weigh in on Apple's $46 billion quarter
Apple's results helped boost shares of companies that make
components for its products.
Chipmakers including Broadcom (BRCM, Fortune 500), Qualcomm
(QCOM, Fortune 500) TriQuint (TQNT), ARM Holdings (ARMH),
Cirrus Logic (CRUS) and Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) all surged.
Nuance Communications (NUAN), one of the companies responsible
for Apple's voice recognition software Siri, gained 3%. Even
Zagg (ZAGG), a maker of mobile device accessories, rose 4%.
An Apple store is worth as much as the White House
Apple's growth is a stunning achievement for a 35-year old
company that had a market cap of just $10 billion a decade
ago.
The company's turnaround began with the launch of the iPod,
and growth really skyrocketed after the iPhone's release in
2007.
In the most recent quarter alone, Apple sold a whopping 37
million iPhones, twice what it sold in the same period a year
ago.
IPad sales doubled to a record 15.4 million. Apple moved
5.2 million Macs, the first time Apple sold more than 5 million
of its PCs in a quarter. The company also sold 15.4 million
iPods during the holiday quarter, which ended Dec. 31.
Ben Rooney @CNNMoneyMarkets
http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/25/markets/apple_stock/index.htm
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