Hyderabad: In its 48-year history, Microsoft has reached a $3 trillion market cap on Wednesday. Microsoft now stands as the second company, after Apple to reach the milestone.
The Satya Nadella-run company reached the milestone valuation after its stock climbed 1.5 per cent in trading on Nasdaq late on Wednesday. Tim Cook-led Apple hit the $3 trillion market cap around two years ago.
The rivalry between Microsoft and Apple for the top spot in market capitalisation is on since the beginning of the year. Earlier this month, Microsoft surpassed Apple’s market cap to become the world’s most valuable public company for a brief period.
Microsoft’s stock has been rallying in recent months, amid its artificial intelligence (AI) push along with OpenAI. In the past five years, Microsoft’s stock price has moved from $107 to the current price of around $404. Now, it has finally crossed the $3 trillion mark and stayed there.
Microsoft, under Nadella, has also acquired several AI companies and invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI, reports The Verge. Nadella took charge of the company nearly 10 years ago, and acquired Minecraft developer Mojang, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Xamarin.
On the other hand, Apple has been facing challenges as demand for its iPhones slows, particularly in China grew. The iPhone maker has also been slow to make an entry in the realm of Artificial Intelligence.
Microsoft's stock saw a huge leap after it announced a steep price on Copilot for Microsoft 365, its AI-powered Office documents. Since then, the company has been announcing new AI features every now and then.
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