Apple now worth more than Alphabet, Amazon and Meta combined
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What a difference one year can make. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) closed out Wednesday's session with a market capitalization of $2.307T, making it more valuable than Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Meta (NASDAQ:META) combined (worth a total of $2.306T). The latter group even started 2022 worth $4.410T, compared to the valuation of the iPhone maker at $2.913T .
Free cash flow: "Take a look at last quarter. Apple FCF: $20 billion, Google FCF: $16 billion, Meta FCF: $0.3 billion, Amazon FCF: -$5 billion," tweeted financial YouTuber Joseph Carlson, who first pointed out the comparison. "Now of course one quarter doesn't paint the full picture. But Apple is posting massive FCF like clockwork. The others are not."
The four companies also reported earnings last week and only Apple's (AAPL) results were met with a positive market reaction. Macs selling at a record pace outweighed a slight miss on iPhone sales, while the firm beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Weak growth, some misses and downbeat forecasts weighed on the other tech giants, while many are worried about Meta's (META) experimental pivot to a digital avatar-filled universe given its lack of regard to spending as the business burns billions.
Commentary: "Perhaps it's investor expectations, demanding perfection across complicated conglomerates," wrote Mark Shmulik, senior internet analyst at Bernstein, following the quarterly figures last week. "Or maybe Internet mega-caps are a lot less agile than we thought and [are] either unable or unwilling to adapt to a changing operating environment. What if it's just structural and Internet incumbents need to spend an ever-increasing amount of capital in their mature years to keep competitors at bay? All the above."