Microsoft becomes most valuable US company

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft has become the most valuable US company with $753.3 billion in market capitalisation, riding past Apple for the first time since 2010 when it came close to the Cupertino-based tech giant.

Apple, which became the first $1-trillion US company in August, came down to $746.8 billion on Friday, owing to lowerthan-expected iPhone sales amid reports of its suppliers cutting cost and workforce.

Amazon with $736.6 billion is currently at third and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) with $725.5 billion is at the fourth spot. “With Microsoft now overshadowing all three, including Alphabet Inc, the firm now looks to be the most valuable tech company of the Silicon Valley giants,” mspoweruser.com reported. The investors are now betting big on companies with robust Cloud services and software services which are witnessing an increased demand from big and small enterprises the world over for their digital journey, at a time when giants like Facebook and Google face intense scrutiny for users’ data practices. Riding on its growing Azure Cloud, gaming and Surface laptop portfolio, Microsoft posted a revenue of $29.1 billion and net income of $8.8 billion for the first quarter of its 2019 financial results. Revenue was up 19% while net income increased by 34%. Operating income was $10 billion and increased 29%. “We are off to a great start in fiscal 2019, a result of our innovation and the trust customers are placing in us to power their digital transformation,” CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $8.6 billion and increased 24%. Server products and Cloud services revenue increased 28% driven by Azure revenue growth of 76%, Microsoft informed.