There is a new old leader in the ranking of the world’s most valuable companies. After giving up its leading position last year, US technology giant Microsoft has once again taken the top spot, surpassing its counterpart, Apple. The recently published earnings report of Microsoft boosted a rise in the company’s shares. The report for the third quarter showed that the tech titan was doing great even despite the pandemic and achieved impressive results. At the moment the rating was published, Microsoft stock was trading at $327.27 per share, giving it a market capitalization of $2.45 trillion. Meanwhile, Apple’s shares fell by 3.6% to $147.07 per share, lowering the company’s market cap to $2.43 trillion. Therefore, Microsoft overtook Apple by $20 billion in market value. Microsoft’s net income for the last quarter went up by 47.6%, or $20.5 billion. Notably, the shares of the IT giant have been steadily rising since the earnings data was published. Thus, the price of the company’s stock jumped by 4% on the day the earnings report was released. On a yearly basis, the shares of Microsoft gained 50% whereas Apple’s stock rose by just 13.6%. Analysts estimate that Microsoft will expand even more this year thanks to its fast-growing cloud business.
