Apple Inc's stock has been on the decline since the company's quarterly earnings report on Wednesday [Reuters]
Exxon has once again surpassed Apple as the world's
most valuable company after the iPhone and iPad maker saw its stock
price falter.
Apple's stock fell 2.6 percent to $438.76 in
afternoon trading on Friday for a market capitalisation of $412 bn
following a 12 percent drop on Thursday, the biggest one-day percentage
drop for the company since 2008.
Apple Inc.'s stock has been on
the decline since the company's quarterly earnings report on Wednesday
suggested that its fast growth phase, rare for a company of its size,
may be coming to an end.
Exxon Mobil Corp. gained 10 cents Friday to $91.45 for a market capitalisation of $417bn.
Apple first surpassed Exxon in the summer of 2011, displacing the oil company from a perch it had held since 2005.
The two companies traded places through that fall, until Apple surpassed Exxon for good in early 2012 - at least until Friday.
China's
largest oil company, PetroChina, could lay claim to having hit a market
capitalisation even higher than either Exxon's or Apple's, but
only based on prices on the Shanghai stock exchange, which is isolated
from the rest of the financial world because of Chinese laws on foreign
investment.
PetroChina's shares also trade in Hong Kong and on
the New York Stock Exchange. Based on prices there, its market
capitalisation never went as high as $500bn.
Apple and Exxon are
among only a half dozen US companies to have ever reached $500 billion
in market value. Apple and Microsoft Corp. are the only ones to have
ever hit $600bn.
Apple's stock price peaked in September at
$705.07 on the day the iPhone 5 was released. Exxon, in the meantime,
has been trading steady.
Consistent trading
Its business - oil - seems less prone to stock market ups and downs than the Cupertino, California-based tech darling.
Exxon, which is based in Irving, Texas, set a record in 2008 for the highest quarterly earnings by any company.
In
the first nine months of 2012, Exxon earned nearly $35 billion, or 10
percent more than the same period in 2011, on revenue of $367bn.
Results for the fourth quarter are due February 1.
Exxon,
the biggest investor-owned energy company in the world, predicted in
December that oil will continue to be the most important source of
energy.
That's because cars, trucks, airplanes, trains and ships
will still depend heavily on oil-derived fuels such as gasoline and
diesel.
This year, investors seem unforgiving with Apple, looking for perfection and punishing the stock for anything less.
The
company's stock price slipped below $500 for the first time last week,
as investors saw signs that the iPhone 5 was falling behind competition
from phones running Google's Android software, especially those from
Samsung Electronics Co.
The latest quarterly report added to the concerns.
Apple
warned that its revenue growth, which had been running at a speed more
reminiscent of promising startups than multi-national corporations, is
slowing down considerably.
A big reason: It has been nearly three
years since a new product has come from a company still seen as the
embodiment of innovation.
That last product, the iPad, came in 2010, when its CEO Steve Jobs was still alive.
Some analysts
question whether Apple can keep growing by just releasing new versions
of its old products. The long-rumoured Apple TV, is still just that, a
rumour.
culled from http://www.aljazeera.com
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