Microsoft became the world’s largest company by market capitalization after surpassing Apple in January 2024.
Microsoft overtook Apple as investors pushed its shares higher on expectations for cloud growth and artificial-intelligence opportunities. The ranking was not permanent: market capitalization changes with share prices, so the top position can switch even when neither company makes a major structural change.
Microsoft’s Azure cloud business and its enterprise software subscriptions were central to the market’s view of its growth. Its close relationship with OpenAI also made Microsoft one of the most closely watched companies in the generative-AI boom.
Apple remained a giant with a valuable hardware-and-services ecosystem. Rankings based on market cap should not be confused with rankings by revenue, profit, assets, or number of employees.