Nvidia’s 2024 market-cap rise made it the world’s most valuable publicly traded company in June.
Nvidia briefly moved into first place globally by market capitalization on June 18, 2024, surpassing Microsoft and Apple. Its shares had risen dramatically as investors anticipated continued demand for the company’s processors, networking equipment, and software used in artificial-intelligence data centers.
The ranking was not permanent. Market capitalization changes with share prices, and Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple continued to trade places as investors reassessed growth, interest rates, earnings, and technology spending. Nvidia’s rise was especially notable because it had historically been associated with video-game graphics before becoming a leading supplier of accelerated computing. The company’s gains also illustrate why “richest company” usually means most valuable by market capitalization, not the company with the highest revenue, profit, or cash balance.