While most parts of the world are struggling to cope with a surge in unemployment and a sharp drop in economic growth, 0.001% of people have benefited from unprecedented wealth creation. The big companies in the technology industry have just ended a glorious year.
According to the US Consumer News and Business Channel website on December 31, 2020, in 2020, the seven tech companies with the highest market value in the US, namely Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet Inc., Facebook, Tesla, and Nvidia, increased their market value by a total of $3.4 trillion.
Neither the coronavirus pandemic nor the increasing investigations into its dominance have slowed down the rapid growth of large tech companies. Promoting factors include the market’s continuous optimism about Apple’s mobile phone sales, Microsoft’s increasing collaboration product Teams, Amazon’s continuing control of e-commerce, and the dual monopoly of online advertising by Google and Facebook.
Tesla’s skyrocketing is the biggest surprise. In 2020, Tesla’s stock price rose by nearly 8 times, pushing the market value of the electric car manufacturer from $76 billion at the beginning of the year to $669 billion at the close of trading on December 31.
At the same time, the market value of chip maker Nvidia has more than doubled in 2020 to current US$323 billion, making it the seventh-largest tech company in the US by market value, which ranks 16th overall.
The largest increase in market value so far belongs to Apple. Its stock price has risen 81% and its market value has increased by nearly $1 trillion. Amazon benefited from the growth of its consumer and cloud computing business, and its market value increased by $710 billion. Microsoft grew by US$480 billion, Alphabet Inc. grew by US$268 billion, and Facebook grew by US$193 billion.
