Microsoft became the third U.S. company to exceed a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2019.
Microsoft briefly passed the milestone during trading on April 25, 2019. Apple and Amazon had reached $1 trillion earlier, making Microsoft the third U.S.-based company to join the group. Investors had increasingly rewarded Microsoft for its transition toward recurring software subscriptions and cloud computing.
The company’s Azure cloud platform, Office 365 subscriptions, enterprise software, and professional network LinkedIn became important parts of its modern growth story. This differed from the image of Microsoft as primarily a Windows and personal-computer company.
A market-cap milestone is based on publicly traded equity, not total assets or annual revenue. Microsoft’s market value has since moved far above the 2019 threshold, but the original event remains a notable stage in the expansion of large technology companies.