Microsoft has become the third US company to pass a market cap of $1 trillion. The software giant passed the milestone briefly today after a jump in stock price today following strong fiscal Q3 earnings. Microsoft joins Apple and Amazon in hitting the $1 trillion valuation ahead of rival Google.
Microsoft’s stock price opened at $130 per share today, up around four percent from the $125 closing price yesterday. While the stock price will likely fluctuate a lot today, the company has hit the $1 trillion market during NASDAQ day trading hours this morning. Microsoft’s current valuation also means that has again taken over Apple as the world’s most valuable company, after briefly passing Apple back in November.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/16189668/bHvaS0k.png)
Microsoft’s stock has been pushed up thanks to its cloud growth. The software maker has been pushing its cloud products in recent years, and the company is aiming to catch up to Amazon’s AWS dominance. Azure is currently second behind Amazon for cloud services, and ahead of Google’s own offerings.
Microsoft’s latest earnings also revealed that the three main buckets the company splits its businesses up into are all doing well and roughly contributing the same amount of revenue this quarter (around 30 percent each).
- Office, LinkedIn, and Dynamics = $10.2 billion in revenue
- Azure cloud, server products, and enterprise services = $9.7 billion in revenue
- Windows, Xbox, and Surface = $10.7 billion in revenue
While the $1 trillion valuation is something that investors pay close attention to, it’s not something that Microsoft cares about. “This is a metric that nobody on the senior leadership team is tracking,” said Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer at an event attended by GeekWire last year. “Nobody is sitting around high-fiving when the stock hits some new high.”
Update April 25th, 10:45AM ET: Article updated to note Microsoft’s brief $1 trillion valuation.