Oil company Exxon Mobil has overtaken Apple as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.
Apple, which posted disappointing iPhone sales figures on Wednesday, has seen its shares fall 37% since their record high last September.
The two companies have been trading places at the top for the last few years:
- Exxon became number one in 2005,
- it traded places with Apple during 2011,
- had been number two since early 2012 and
- At the close on Wall Street yesterday, Apple had a market value of $413bn, against Exxon’s of $418bn.
The tech giant has been hit by fears over its future growth, despite record profits. On Thursday, about $50bn was wiped off Apple’s value after the biggest daily drop in the firm’s stock in four years.
Apple is also facing fierce competition from rivals like Samsung, which accounted for one in four of all mobile phones shipped worldwide last year.
Apple’s share price rose sharply following a revival under Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, which came about first in computers and then the iPod music player, and was then followed by the iPhone and iPad.
Via: BBC