Market cap is the number of shares times the price per share. Market cap taken as a percentage of the highest market cap of the group: AAPL: 100% GOOGL: 78.76% MSFT: 68.55% FB: 60.00% AMZN: 57.15%
We can get an idea of the present the “size” of the company by comparing revenue, net income, and total equity. Revenue and net income for fy 2016, and total equity for last quarter: AAPL: $216 B(illion); $45.7 B; 132.4 B AMZN: $136 B; $2.4 B; 19 B MSFT: $90 B; $21.2 B; $72.4 B GOOGL: $90 B; $19.5 B; $148.3 B FB: $28 B; $10.2 B; $66.5 B
But we also need to look at recent growth. Roughly speaking, we can order these 5 stocks by their companies’ recent growth, with FB being the fastest growing and MSFT being the slowest: FB AMZN GOOGL AAPL MSFT
What do I personally take out of all this? That the market has no consistent reason why one stock is valued higher than another. AMZN seems to be valued on it’s revenue growth, GOOGL seems to be valued on their net income and equity, MSFT seems to be valued on it’s legacy, FB seems to be valued on it’s growth potential, and AAPL seems to be valued on it’s sheer mass and inertia.
Hi Joseph, Thoughts? I’ll bite. It’s lit majors vs. math majors. Stories vs. current financial metrics.
I could elaborate or be an arm-chair phenomenologist. It it what it is. Seriously. The story (lit majors) is the others listed have great long-term upside, except for Apple.
My story is that Apple has great upside potential but it’s not so obvious. Two areas, health and hearth (home). Apple is just getting started in those two, where the total spend is $T’s annually. Apps is a ‘house on fire’ biz, per App Annie’s numbers. There’s no reason for the Apps biz to peak – It’s software, withnearly zero incremental cost to scale. Digging deeper, down the silicon, the chips in Apple Watch and AirPod are part of another long-term strategy into wearables and IoT. Like health and hearth, it’s too early to make any projections. Because of Apple’s tenacious adherence to privacy, security and UX, loyalty by users and enterprises is growing and unshakable.
Closing: A smart VC once said, “When Steve launched the iPhone, who predicted a ride hailing service being worth $68B” (which Uber is/was on paper…)
Footnote: Aetna (23 M users) and Apple apparently in talks regarding Apple Watch..
Fred, I think you are definitely onto something in terms of potential future markets for Apple with respect to health and home. I have two directional thoughts there and another market (well, maybe two) to add:
1) Health and home will grow as technology matures: the markets and applications will grow (I certainly hope so, since my business unit at work is called Sensing and the Internet of Things). As the human-facing interface element, this is very favorable to Apple.
2) The health and home markets will decrease in cost as technology matures. I’d call this mixed for Apple, but Apple is the interface, rather than the sense element. (For me, it’s vaguely unfavorable, since costs are frequently reduced by eliminating employees.)
3) Additional markets: transportation (be that automotive or aerospace). These will also grow. Sensing is big in both, but Apple’s place to differentiate and win is in the human interface aspect. That leans more toward auto than aero.
I think ‘home’ is a great market, and was really excited by the iPhone Home initiative, app, etc. But I’ve been disappointed (almost to the point of ‘disgusted’) by the lack of emphasis and execution. Apple could afford to spend some capital (both fiscal and engineering) in bootstrapping products.
(Of course, right now I’m pretty disgusted with computer things in general, trying to debug a problem between Mac OS X and Lexmark multifunction. )
Philip Elmer-DeWitt has been covering Apple since 1983 — mostly for Time Magazine (28 years), later for Fortune (9 years), where he wrote a daily blog called Apple 2.0. [Read more.]
Market cap is the number of shares times the price per share. Market cap taken as a percentage of the highest market cap of the group:
AAPL: 100%
GOOGL: 78.76%
MSFT: 68.55%
FB: 60.00%
AMZN: 57.15%
We can get an idea of the present the “size” of the company by comparing revenue, net income, and total equity.
Revenue and net income for fy 2016, and total equity for last quarter:
AAPL: $216 B(illion); $45.7 B; 132.4 B
AMZN: $136 B; $2.4 B; 19 B
MSFT: $90 B; $21.2 B; $72.4 B
GOOGL: $90 B; $19.5 B; $148.3 B
FB: $28 B; $10.2 B; $66.5 B
But we also need to look at recent growth. Roughly speaking, we can order these 5 stocks by their companies’ recent growth, with FB being the fastest growing and MSFT being the slowest:
FB
AMZN
GOOGL
AAPL
MSFT
What do I personally take out of all this? That the market has no consistent reason why one stock is valued higher than another. AMZN seems to be valued on it’s revenue growth, GOOGL seems to be valued on their net income and equity, MSFT seems to be valued on it’s legacy, FB seems to be valued on it’s growth potential, and AAPL seems to be valued on it’s sheer mass and inertia.
Thoughts?
Hi Joseph, Thoughts? I’ll bite.
It’s lit majors vs. math majors.
Stories vs. current financial metrics.
I could elaborate or be an arm-chair phenomenologist. It it what it is. Seriously. The story (lit majors) is the others listed have great long-term upside, except for Apple.
My story is that Apple has great upside potential but it’s not so obvious. Two areas, health and hearth (home). Apple is just getting started in those two, where the total spend is $T’s annually. Apps is a ‘house on fire’ biz, per App Annie’s numbers. There’s no reason for the Apps biz to peak – It’s software, withnearly zero incremental cost to scale. Digging deeper, down the silicon, the chips in Apple Watch and AirPod are part of another long-term strategy into wearables and IoT. Like health and hearth, it’s too early to make any projections. Because of Apple’s tenacious adherence to privacy, security and UX, loyalty by users and enterprises is growing and unshakable.
Closing: A smart VC once said, “When Steve launched the iPhone, who predicted a ride hailing service being worth $68B” (which Uber is/was on paper…)
Footnote: Aetna (23 M users) and Apple apparently in talks regarding Apple Watch..
Fred, I think you are definitely onto something in terms of potential future markets for Apple with respect to health and home. I have two directional thoughts there and another market (well, maybe two) to add:
1) Health and home will grow as technology matures: the markets and applications will grow (I certainly hope so, since my business unit at work is called Sensing and the Internet of Things). As the human-facing interface element, this is very favorable to Apple.
2) The health and home markets will decrease in cost as technology matures. I’d call this mixed for Apple, but Apple is the interface, rather than the sense element. (For me, it’s vaguely unfavorable, since costs are frequently reduced by eliminating employees.)
3) Additional markets: transportation (be that automotive or aerospace). These will also grow. Sensing is big in both, but Apple’s place to differentiate and win is in the human interface aspect. That leans more toward auto than aero.
Just some points to ponder.
I think ‘home’ is a great market, and was really excited by the iPhone Home initiative, app, etc. But I’ve been disappointed (almost to the point of ‘disgusted’) by the lack of emphasis and execution. Apple could afford to spend some capital (both fiscal and engineering) in bootstrapping products.
(Of course, right now I’m pretty disgusted with computer things in general, trying to debug a problem between Mac OS X and Lexmark multifunction. )