Android won

Three reasons why Apple is no longer the most expensive company in the world

Google overtook Apple in capitalization and became the most expensive company in the world. This is phenomenal news: in the four years that the manufacturer of iPhones was at the top of the rating (only at short segments of time, giving way to the leadership of oil exxonmobil), it seemed that the Apple’s technological giants could not be caught up for anyone - the gap was too great. Nevertheless, Google (more precisely, Alphabet, in which the search engine was reformatted) did this. "Medusa" explains why.

Google spent the year 2015

This thesis can be proved by numbers, you can - facts, or it can be sensed. Let's start with the first: Alphabet earned almost $ 75 billion in a year, and its operating profit amounted to 23 billion. Despite the fact that Google is a huge company with tens of thousands of employees, it is growing with a pace that many startups can envy - in the fourth quarter, Google revenue rose by 18%.

The facts are that Google is still the main search engine in the world, YouTube-the main video hosting, Chrome-one of the main browsers, Android-the most popular mobile operating system with a huge separation from iOS and Windows. Google is excellent to monetize traffic due to advertising. But not only at the expense of it: two billion dollars of the company bring “other income”, in particular, the subscription fee for the use of cloud services and the Google Play app store.

Another important fact of 2015 - Google painlessly survived a large -scale reorganization. Now the company is called Alphabet, and Google is the main, but not the only part of it. Directs that were not related to the Internet were displayed into individual units - for example, the production of self -governing cars. Since the beginning of October, when the creation of Alphabet has been announced, its shares have grown by 20% - this is not evidence that the founders of Google did everything right.

And finally, sensations. Google seems to regain the title of the most innovative company in the world. He is engaged in the most breakthrough technologies-his supercomputers are already playing a person in th, his self-governing cars are about to learn to drive no worse than people, and drones-to deliver medicines and pizza. He also works on “smart” contact lenses, a variety of home gadgets, he has his own venture fund. A large amount of money in the accounts allows Google to conduct an aggressive policy of acquiring competitors and spend huge amounts even on what may never pay off later.

Tired iPhones

Let's move on to Apple. The “sixth” iPhones were represented in September 2014 - a year and a half ago. In September 2015, Apple announced the issue of 6s and 6s Plus, which-compared to the previous version-changed slightly. Many Apple fans are still using old smartphones and are waiting for a new version.

As a result, the growth of iPhone sales has slowed down significantly , and the company will produce fewer tubes than it planned initially. Since the beginning of 2016, Apple shares have fallen in price by 9%, over the past 12 months - by 19%. It is the company to convince investors that the next breakthrough in technology will be made by Apple.

Apple does not have a “plan B”. Or is it unknown to us about it

Founded by Steve Jobs, the company produces macbooks, watches, is engaged in Apple TV and much more, but its financial results are very dependent on iPhones: they bring Apple more than 60% of the revenue. Whether the company goes to other sectors as actively as Google, we do not know: Apple prefers to keep his developments secret.

There are rumors that Apple is developing an electric car, but the company does not tell any details. Meanwhile, for investors, the presence of potentially breakthrough technology is of great importance - the cost of shares in the market reflects not only the “fair” value of the company right now, but also the expectations of investors regarding its future.

* * *

The news of the change of capitalization leader should not be overestimated: the shares of both Google and Apple remain one of the most attractive securities on the exchange. The symbol is important: from now on, the most expensive company in the world produces not innovative and elitist products, but what at least once a day is almost half the world's population.