Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) eclipsed Samsung (KS:005930) for the first time in the new year to become the largest smartphone manufacturer globally.
With a staggering market cap of US$3.03 trillion, Apple’s success story mirrors that of the larger tech industry over the last two decades.
A report from City Index has revealed an evolution of which stocks take the top positions on the stock market in recent years.
In 2023, technology firms dominate international markets. Of the top 10 largest companies, seven are tech stocks – Apple, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Nvidia, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Meta.
Tech wasn’t always on top
While it’s common knowledge the most successful companies in the world these days are tech and digital stocks, it wasn’t always this way.
In the 1980s, the markets were dominated by resource stocks and automotive companies - Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Gulf Oil were the giants of the day.
The tides had begun to shift even back then, however, with IBM – then called International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) – the lone tech stock in the top 10, sitting at number 8.
The 2000s saw the Dot com bubble expand. Microsoft was top dog in 2000 with a value of US$586 billion (YS$1.03 trillion today) but by the next year the bubble had burst, and Microsoft’s shares fell to half that value.
The software giant didn’t take long to recover, however – it was back on top by 2003 and would hold its position there until being knocked off by Apple’s meteoric rise in the early 2010s.
Now, Apple has also conquered the smartphone manufacturing arena, edging out Samsung’s 19.4% share of the market to finish with a solid 20% of market share in 2023.
With Artificial Intelligence emerging as the newest differentiator between the tech haves and have-nots, it’ll likely be the tech stocks most able to capitalise on this new frontier that maintain their momentum into the next decade.