Market cap isn’t everything when determining the value of a company, but considering that just over 10 years ago Apple was free falling into irrelevance, the news today that Apple’s outstanding shares are for the first time ever worth more than Microsoft’s is nothing short of amazing. At the time of writing this, Apple’s market cap was $224.01 billion while Microsoft’s was $217.52 billion. The only company in the world with a market cap larger than Apple is Exxon Mobil at $279.21 billion. For those who aren’t entirely aware of what market cap is, it’s measured by multiplying the number of outstanding shares by their value. But as with stock prices themselves, prices tend to be influenced more by people’s perception of the company’s performance than its actual worth. So basically what we’re saying is to think of this as symbolic. It seems people have more confidence in Apple’s ability to innovate and lead than they do in Microsoft.
