Shares of Google have been rising lately due to a number of factors boosting its revenue, from the growing Google Apps hosted productivity suite stealing biz from Microsoft to the successful launch of the Nexus 7 tablet and a new range of Motorola phones to nice ad sales, relentless Android march and steady dominance in search and maps, only highlighted by Apple’s iOS 6 Maps woes. And now, the search giant has passed another milestone as its market capitalization surpassed that of Microsoft in early trading…
Bloomberg broke the news via Twitter.
BREAKING: Google’s market cap surpasses Microsoft in early trading
— Bloomberg News (@BloombergNews) October 1, 2012
Google was $19 billion behind Microsoft in market cap at the start of 2012, but this morning the search Goliath closed that gap entirely.
Google’s stock price hit a record high of $748.90 on September 24, passing the company’s previous record of $747.24 set in November 2007.
Comparison via Yahoo Finance
Microsoft still leads Google with a nice $3 billion difference that could, however, easily be erased if Google surges again. You can easily track market cap of GOOG and MSFT via Google Finance.
WolframAlpha has more on the Google vs. Microsoft market cap.
Bloomberg TV also has this video up, making the case for Google turning tables on Apple as it’s “taking back leadership from Apple in the tech space”.
To put this in some perspective, two years ago Microsoft was the world’s most valuable technology company. It is now behind Apple and, if these numbers are an indication, soon will fall behind Google as well.
What a difference two years make…
In comparison, Apple’s iPhone biz alone is now worth more than all of Microsoft, including Windows, Office, Xbox and all of its other products combined.
Google passing Microsoft is anything if not a huge slap in Microsoft’s face, no?