Microsoft has now become the third most valuable company in the world, surpassing Google (Alphabet) in market valuation. The market worth of Microsoft is now over $749 billion, $10 billion ahead of Alphabet’s $739 billion.
The Redmond-based company debuted on stock market in 1986, while Google went public in 2004. The search-engine giant surpassed Microsoft in 2012, and the companies kept flip-flopping over the next few years.
In 2015, Google founded Alphabet as its parent company and took a commanding lead in the stock market, and held onto it till this month. For the last three years, Google has been ahead of Microsoft.
The market valuation of Microsoft significantly increased since Satya Nadella took over as the CEO in 2014. He shifted the focus of Microsoft from failed Windows Phone efforts to modern technologies like cloud computing, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and mixed reality.
In the final quarter of 2017, Microsoft’s cloud revenues grew 56% year over year, and reached $5.3 billion. Amazon Web Services, the cloud unit of Amazon, dominated the public cloud market, but Microsoft cloud grew faster than AWS. Google became $1 billion company on cloud computing front.
Microsoft is now behind Apple, valued at $923 billion, and Amazon, valued at $782 billion. However, Microsoft has more number of businesses to generate revenue from than Google and Apple.
While Apple generates 60% of its revenue from iPhone business, the advertising accounts for around 90% of Google’s entire revenue. As per the recent quarter results, Microsoft generates 35% of revenue from Windows, Surface, and gaming business; 30% from cloud business; and another 30% from Office and productivity business.
Google is now at the fourth position in market valuation, ahead of Facebook and Tencent.
Also read: Microsoft, Accenture and Avanade join hands to deliver industry-specific AI solutions
According to Morgan Stanley, the investment banking company, Microsoft will cross the $1 trillion mark in next 12 months.
