With the soaring global oil prices, apple, the gold sucking giant, can only bow down to Saudi oil tyrants Although they are listed companies, the fundamentals and ownership of apple and Saudi Aramco are quite different. It is meaningless to simply compare the two companies. However, the rise and fall of the market value of the two companies is a wind vane reflecting the global economic situation.
Sina Technology Zheng Jun
The U.S. stock market fell for days, and technology stocks fell heavily. Apple also lost the throne of the world's most valuable listed company. U.S. stocks closed Thursday, with consumer electronics industry overlord apple down 2.7% and its market value falling to $2.31 trillion. Since hitting the $3 trillion mark in early January, Apple's market value has shrunk by more than 23%, down 10% this month.
The trend of other technology giants is also depressed. Several members of the "Two Trillion Dollar Club", Microsoft This year, it has fallen by 25% and its market value has fallen to US $190 million; [Amazon]( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/usstock/quotes/AMZN.html ) The cumulative decline was 38%, and the market value shrank sharply to US $1.07 trillion; Google The current market value is $1.46 trillion. Facebook Parent company meta has fallen by 45% this year, and its market value, once trillion US dollars, is now almost halved.
Amid the gloom in US technology stocks, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, has a promising future. The share price of the stock has continued to rise by 28% this year, with a current market value of more than $2.4 trillion. Saudi Aramco therefore surpassed apple for the first time since 2020 and once again became the listed company with the highest market value in the world.
This change is not surprising. Here is a river of blood flowing from US stocks, and technology stocks continue to fall sharply. In that case, the global oil price is high, and the oil giants are full of profits. In March this year, after the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the global oil price once hit a 14 year high of $139 a barrel. The inflationary pressure brought about by the rise in oil prices prompted the US central bank to raise interest rates sharply, which directly put pressure on the sharp decline of the stock market.
Saudi Aramco is not an ordinary oil company, which is difficult to measure by the fundamentals of ordinary listed companies. It is meaningless to simply compare apple and Saudi Aramco. Behind this company is the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in which the Saudi government holds more than 98% of the shares. Saudi Arabia has the largest offshore oil reserves and Aramco is the largest offshore oil company in the world.
At present, among the top 20 companies with the highest market value in the world, American companies occupy 15 seats. Among the top ten companies in the world by market value, there are seven technology companies (six American companies). TSMC It is also the largest chip company in the world with a market value of US $455 billion. [Tencent]( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/hkstock/quotes/00700.html ) Ranked 12th with us $429 billion, it is the Chinese Internet enterprise with the highest market value. China's Maotai ranks 21st in the world with us $327.9 billion and is the world's largest liquor enterprise by market value.
Moreover, Saudi Aramco only "recaptured" the glory of the company with the highest market value this time. On December 11, 2019, Saudi Aramco was listed on the Saudi stock exchange, raising US $25.6 billion, which also broke the 2014 [Ali]( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/usstock/quotes/BABA.html ) IPO Financing record of $21.8 billion in the United States. On the first day of listing, Saudi Aramco's closing market value was as high as $1.88 trillion, surpassing apple to become the world's most valuable enterprise.
However, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 in 2020, countries around the world fell into a shutdown to curb oil demand, the negotiation on the OPEC production reduction agreement broke down, the international oil price once plummeted to negative value, and Saudi Aramco's performance was also dragged down, resulting in a decline in its market value. In July of that year, apple surpassed Saudi Aramco with a market value of $1.84 trillion (the market value was $1.76 trillion at that time).
Last year, the global economy gradually recovered and oil prices soared again, which also brought a solid boost to Saudi Aramco. In 2021, Saudi Aramco's net profit increased by 124%, soaring from US $49 billion to US $110 billion; Revenue increased by more than 50%, from $205 billion to $360 billion. As a state-owned entity, Saudi Aramco is also an important source of revenue for the Saudi government. It is worth mentioning that Saudi Aramco's net profit in 2021 was 16% higher than that of apple ($94.68 billion). With the rise of oil prices, apple, the gold sucking beast, can only bow to the disadvantage of Saudi oil tyrants.
In fact, the stock market has ups and downs, and the trend is difficult to predict. The false name of "the world's most valuable enterprise" itself is not important. Microsoft and Saudi Aramco have occupied this position many times in the past decade. However, the trend of energy stocks overwhelms technology stocks, which is a wind vane reflecting the overall economic trend.
Before Apple reached the top of the index, the world's most valuable enterprise was originally an energy company. On August 11, 2011, apple officially surpassed [ExxonMobil] in market value( http://stock.finance.sina.com.cn/usstock/quotes/XOM.html ) , became the world's largest company by market value for the first time with us $346.7 billion, and has occupied this throne for a long time since. In May of the previous year, apple overtook its old rival Microsoft with a market value of $226.9 billion and officially took the top position in the technology industry.
At that time, Apple's CEO was jobs. Although jobs led apple all the way to the top of the world from the brink of bankruptcy and witnessed this brilliant moment with his own eyes, he was unable to work any longer because of the recurrence of cancer. He had to officially resign as CEO in August 2011 and bid farewell to the world more than a month later. Apple has entered the cook era.
Apple was able to surpass Microsoft in market value, become a new overlord in the technology industry, and even become the world's highest market value enterprise, thanks to the mobile Internet era opened by jobs. Launched [iPhone] in 2007( https://apple.pvxt.net/c/1251234/435400/7639?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Fcn%2Fiphone%2F ) After that, global smartphone shipments soared 74% in 2010, accounting for a quarter of the total mobile phone shipments, and the rising momentum has been unstoppable.
Apple is firmly at the top of the mobile Internet industry with IOS ecological platform and iPhone. Although their market share is only 18%, they have taken more than 90% of the profits of the smartphone industry. In the following ten years, Apple's market value continued to soar from more than $300 billion, once exceeding $3 trillion, while the prospect of oil companies was highly bound with oil prices.
At the end of 2018, Microsoft's market value briefly surpassed that of apple. At that time, the market value of the two giants was still at the level of 800 billion. At that time, Apple was facing a performance dilemma: iPhone sales, which contributed nearly 60% of revenue, fell, and even no longer announced product sales. At one time, its share price fell by more than 20%. Microsoft has become a hot favorite in the market because of the smooth transformation of cloud services.
As iPhone sales grew again, apple came out of its low performance and its share price began to soar again. Although the outbreak of the COVID-19 once reduced Apple's market value by more than $400billion, with the Federal Reserve's water easing policy and the strong demand for consumer electronic products brought about by the epidemic, Apple's share price began to grow strongly again, until the market value exceeded $3trillion on January 4 this year. From $2 trillion to $3 trillion, apple took only 16 months.
It seems that Apple was in a good situation at that time. In the fourth quarter of last year, Apple's performance hit a new high, with a single quarter revenue of $123.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 11%; The net profit was US $34.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 20%. Moreover, the revenue of all businesses increased strongly. The iPhone 13 series released last year continued to sell well, with an overall gross profit margin of more than 40%.
However, no matter how good the performance is, it can't stop the changing environment. Over the past few months, Apple's share price has continued to decline, which is more dragged down by the macro-economy and the overall environment. Inflation in the United States remains high, and rising oil prices are the most critical factor. CPI rose to a 40 year high of 8.4% in March this year. Under severe inflationary pressure, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 50 basis points at one time at the beginning of this month, the first time in 22 years; The US stock market also began to turn around and fall.
If the Federal Reserve accelerates the pace of monetary tightening, it will also trigger a chain reaction in other countries, prompting major central banks to follow up with interest rate hikes, driving up the global interest rate level, leading to a sharp decline in market risk appetite and a rise in risk aversion. The stock market has become the most direct barometer. Investors have sold off stocks that are considered to be risky and foam, and cryptocurrencies are not immune.
Technology stocks, which have led the rise in the US stock market in the past two years, have become the biggest "victim" of this round of adjustment. NASDAQ The index has fallen nearly 30% this year, compared with Dow Jones The index fell 14.5% and the standard & Poor's 500 index fell 19%. In the three trading days after the Fed raised interest rates on May 6, the overall value of the technology stock market shrank by $1 trillion, of which Apple also "contributed" more than $200 billion.
On the other hand, the global economic outlook is uncertain. The global inflationary pressure caused by the war between Russia and Ukraine, especially the rising cost of living caused by the soaring oil price, will also affect people's consumption expectations and the demand of the consumer electronics industry. In the past two years, Apple has been facing the impact of supply chain problems caused by the epidemic. Apple expects that the revenue in the second quarter of this year may be reduced by $4 billion to $8 billion, and the impact may be higher than that in the first quarter.
At a time when the global economic outlook is uncertain and oil prices are high, energy is obviously the strongest stock. The World Bank expects that due to the supply interruption caused by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the price of Brent crude oil in the North Sea is expected to remain above US $100 per barrel this year, the highest oil price since 2013. But Saudi Aramco CEO Nasser remained calm, because the continued rise in oil prices will push Qualcomm Commodity inflation, in turn, will curb oil consumption demand.
Energy stocks are undoubtedly the biggest beneficiaries of the rise in global oil prices. Against the backdrop of the overall decline in US stocks, energy stocks in the S & P 500 index soared by 40%. ExxonMobil, the largest oil giant in the United States, increased its revenue by 53% to $88 billion in the first quarter, and its net profit increased by 101% to $5.48 billion. ExxonMobil's share price has risen 33% this year. At present, its market value is as high as US $364 billion, ranking 16th in the world and the second largest oil company after Saudi Aramco. Yes, ExxonMobil's market value is still at the level of 2011.