Apple surrendered the top spot as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company to technology giant Microsoft Corp on Friday after shares in the iPhone maker fell about 2%.
Apple suffered a US$6 billion drop in revenue in the fourth quarter due to ongoing global supply chain bottlenecks, which led to lower-than-expected growth. Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed more pessimism for the current Christmas quarter.
Apple shares fell 1.8% to $149.80, giving the technology giant a market capitalization of $2.48 trillion, while Microsoft shares rose 2.2% to a record high of $331.62, ending the session with a market capitalization of about $2.49 trillion.
Apple, which has repurchased $421.7 billion worth of shares in recent years, launched a massive $90 billion share buyback in April last year, leading to a steadily shrinking outstanding stock pool as the technology giant closed its fourth fiscal quarter with $16.4 billion worth of shares.
Microsoft shares have risen an impressive 49% this year as revenue from its cloud-based services has continued to grow. Apple shares have gained 13% so far this year.
For more information, you may view the original story from Reuters.
