📈 The Trillion-Dollar Race: Apple vs. Microsoft

On April 4, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, a company focused on computer software. Just one year later, on April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne established Apple Computer Company to market Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. Until 2006, Apple's worth was much less than Microsoft's. However, the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 spurred significant growth for Apple, and by 2010, Apple's market capitalization had surpassed Microsoft's.

Since 2010, Apple has generally maintained a higher market cap than Microsoft. Apple first became the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011, with a market cap surpassing $340 billion. In August 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a market value of $1 trillion. It continued its ascent, reaching $2 trillion in August 2020, and finally hitting the $3 trillion mark briefly in January 2022 before stabilizing below that level.

Microsoft, meanwhile, also saw significant growth, reaching the $1 trillion market cap milestone in April 2019, $2 trillion in June 2021, and $3 trillion in January 2024.

However, from 2024 onwards, the situation changed, with Microsoft's market cap often exceeding Apple's until July 2023. This dynamic shift highlights the competitive nature of these two tech giants in the trillion-dollar race.