Study: Amazon is world’s fifth largest company by market cap

Tech companies dominate a ranking  of the ten  biggest companies in 2023 by market cap.

Apple tops the ranking, which was commissioned by City Index, with a market cap of $3.03 trillion, followed by Microsoft ($2.51 trillion), Saudi Aramco ($2.08 trillion), Alphabet/Google ($1.52 trillion) and Amazon ($1.34 trillion).

Rounding out the top 10: Nvidia ($1.05 trillion), Tesla ($886.8 billion), Berkshire Hathaway ($753.1 billion), Meta/Facebook ($733.1 billion) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ($534.9 billion).

City Index noted that  Apple, with its market cap of $3.03 trillion, is the most valuable company in history.  It was the biggest company in the world for most of the 2010s, and in 2018 became the first U.S .company to surpass  $1 trillion in value. It then surpassed $2 trillion two years later.

City Index also studied the biggest companies in 1980 and 2000 by market cap to establish how the stock markets have changed in the last 40 years. 

Highlights from the research are below. 

• Microsoft was the world’s biggest company in 2000, worth $586 billion (equating to $1.03 trillion in 2023);

 •IBM was the biggest company in 1980, with a market cap of $34.6 billion (equating to $128.12 billion in 2023); and

•The oil and gas sector sector dominated the market throughout the 1980s, but from 2000 onwards, the technology industry produced the most valuable companies.

The methodology used by City Index to establish the most valuable companies from 1980, 2000 and 2023 is below.

1. They gathered historical data, compiling information on the top 10 companies for each year.

2. Market cap/Revenue per company for each year was obtained or inferred in accordance with historical data either from their own archives or from readily available archives.

3. Market cap values were cross-referenced and changed when needed in accordance with multiple readily available sources.

4. Analysis was conducted on the top companies of each year to assess their performance and determine the factors contributing to their sustained dominance. Sources and reasons can be found in individual sheets in the data.

The data is correct as August 21, 2023, and is subject to change.