The world's largest enterprise was born, with a market value of 22.5 trillion yuan, equivalent to 17 Ali, surpassing the UK's GDP
Another company with a market capitalization of more than $3 trillion and the world's largest company was born!
U.S. stocks rallied again, with the Nasdaq rising nearly 200 points on February 10, its highest since November 2021, and the S&P 500 breaking through the 5,000-point mark, hitting a record high. U.S. technology stocks almost all rose, with Nvidia rising the most, more than 3%.
Of course, the biggest winner is Microsoft, with a market capitalization of $3.12 trillion, or about 22.5 trillion yuan. It broke the record set by Apple last year and became the world's most valuable company in history. On January 24 this year, Microsoft's market value exceeded $3 trillion, becoming the second company to enter the "$3 trillion market value club".
Compared with Chinese companies, Tencent and Alibaba used to be the two companies with the highest market value in China, and in 2020, they joined hands to enter the top 10 in the global market capitalization, and Alibaba's market value once exceeded 800 billion US dollars. However, in the past few years of the epidemic, their stock prices have also fallen a lot, and their market value has shrunk significantly.
At present, Tencent has a market capitalization of HK$2.71 trillion, or about US$346.5 billion, and Alibaba has a market capitalization of US$180 billion. Microsoft's market capitalization is equivalent to 9 Tencent and 17 Alibaba.
As of February 8, the total market value of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and ChiNext was 73.6 trillion yuan, which means that Microsoft's market value is equivalent to 30.57% of China's stock market. One company is worth one-third of China's stock market, which is really bullish.
If you compare by national GDP, Microsoft's market value can rank sixth in the world, second only to India, and more than the GDP of the United Kingdom and France, which can be said to be a rich country.
In our impression, Microsoft is a traditional software company, and Bill Gates has been ousted from the world's richest man for many years, why is it that the market value is suddenly so high and it has become more valuable than Apple?
Microsoft's achievements today are due to its advanced layout of AI, and it began to invest in OpenAI in 2019. And in 2023, OpenAI's ChatGPT will be on fire, and Microsoft, as the largest shareholder, will benefit.
Of course, if you are just a shareholder, the stock price will not rise so much. In fact, OpenAI has led to many breakthroughs in Microsoft's business.
Microsoft Cloud Computing has launched the Azure OpenAI service, which has allowed it to gain top new customers such as Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, and Shell. In addition, Microsoft 365 embeds GPT-4, and Bing search also undergoes AI upgrades.
Driven by AI, Microsoft's performance has also ushered in a sharp rise. In the third quarter of 2023, Microsoft's revenue increased by 13% and net profit increased by 27%. In the fourth quarter, revenue increased by 18%, and net profit jumped by 33%. This has propelled Microsoft's stock price up nearly 57% in 2023 and has risen 7% year-to-date, with a market capitalization of more than $3 trillion and outpacing Apple.
Morgan Stanley expects the AI business to provide Microsoft with up to $90 billion in incremental opportunities by fiscal 2025, which means that Microsoft's stock price is likely to continue to rise.
Under the wave of artificial intelligence, American technology companies have seized the market and achieved great success, and the market value has ushered in a sharp rise. According to data from the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, as of February 2, the market value of American companies reached $51 trillion, accounting for 48.1% of the world's total market value, nearly half.
The market value of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong enterprises accounted for about 10%, down nearly half from June 2015.
Some time ago, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2023 Hurun Global 500", which is calculated by market capitalization or valuation. The U.S. has 261 companies on the list, accounting for 52% and accounting for 65% of the total value. There are only 33 Chinese companies, accounting for only 6.6%, or even less than 10%.
Among the top 10, almost all of them are technology companies from the United States, with giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Amazon, with a market value of more than 10 trillion yuan, and China's Tencent and Alibaba have fallen out of the top ten.
There is no doubt that in this wave of AI development competition, the advantage of the United States is strengthening, and our pace is significantly slower. But there are still opportunities, because the industry as a whole is just getting started. I just hope that China's Internet technology companies can put more energy and funds into scientific and technological innovation, instead of competing for jobs with ordinary people.