I saw in the news last night that Apple has now become the most valuable company in the world, and apparently has overtaken Microsoft; however it appears that this particular piece of news to do with Apple isn’t as it would appear, as word is all those headlines stating Apple is the most valuable company in the world are somewhat misleading because apparently IBM tops Apple.
According to an article over on CJR, Apple still isn’t the most valuable firm in history by a long shot, as the press is overlooking reality because Apple’s 620 billion bucks market cap is a ‘nominal record’ so basically in name only because Apple’s record only becomes a record if you do not adjust Microsoft’s 1999 market cap to take in inflation.
The article states that it takes 1.38-bucks today to equal the same value as single buck back in 1999, which means Microsoft’s 1999 market cap would work out at 856 billion bucks today, which when compared to Apple’s is 235 billion more that Apple’s current market cap.
But then even Microsoft doesn’t hold the record, because as the article states, back in 1967, IBM’s market cap was 192.3 billion rear dollars, so it would seem that although the press would like everyone to believe that Apple now holds the most valuable company in the world crown, it doesn’t because IBM still firmly hold that title.
Apparently the reason for the news making Apple the most valuable company in the world is, as the article says, because the press’ desire for truth is ‘bumps into its need for news,’ and apparently ‘records’ is much more newsworthy that non-records.
So there you have it, Apple doesn’t hold that world’s most valuable company title, no matter how much Apple, the press or the iOS faithful would like it to be fact, so that’s the record set straight.