(News Bulletin 247) – The IT services juggernaut exceeds $3,000 billion in capitalization at the opening of the American markets, a threshold that it briefly crossed during Wednesday’s session. Until now, Apple was the sole resident of this very exclusive club.

Microsoft is surpassing a milestone that only Apple had reached before it. The IT services juggernaut rose 0.45% to $404.33, around 3:45 p.m., which allowed it to pass the threshold of $3,000 billion in market capitalization – the stock market value of all shares – to $3,005 billion. dollars, according to data from companiesmarketcap.com.

If this lead is confirmed at the close, Microsoft will be officially inducted into this very exclusive club of which Apple has been the only representative since January 2022.

On Wednesday, the IT giant had already crossed this threshold during the session, and had a market capitalization of $3,009 billion at its highest, before seeing its lead reduced and falling back below this symbolic bar at the close.

Apple still remains the largest global company present on the financial markets, with a market capitalization valued at $3.021 billion. But its hegemony on the stock market was recently shaken up by Microsoft. The IT group temporarily dethroned the Apple brand as the world’s largest market capitalization during the January 11 session.

Microsoft on a stock market cloud

It must be said that Microsoft is the stock in good shape on the American markets, supported by good financial results, thanks to the dynamics of its dematerialized computing services (cloud) with its flagship brand Azure. And the enthusiasm for Microsoft’s generative AI solutions is giving wings to its stock market shares. The company managed by Satya Nadella has therefore enjoyed a very good stock market performance since the start of the year. Its stock gains nearly 9% after gaining nearly 57% in 2023.

And at the same time, the Cupertino group has had a sluggish start to the year on the stock market, and has only gained a little more than 5% since January 1. The apple group is seeing its progress on the stock market slowed down by sluggish sales in China at the start of the year, risks of opening an antitrust investigation in the United States, or even notes from unconvinced analysts. For example, Barclays, which has moved to “underweight” the stock, equivalent to “sell”, is counting on low demand for the iPhone 15 as well as for the future and hypothetical iPhone 16.

This battle between the two American tech giants is reminiscent of the one that took place in Europe in the middle of last summer between the French luxury juggernaut LVMH and Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical group. The match turned to the advantage of the latter in September. Driven by the success of its anti-obesity drugs, Novo Nordisk has put an end to LVMH’s domination of the European stock market since 2021. The French group then dislodged Nestlé from its place as the largest European capitalization.