Amazon Passes Microsoft to Become 3rd Most Valuable Company

Amazon’s market value passed Microsoft’s for the 1st time on Wednesday, making the online retail giant the world’s 3rd most valuable company.

Amazon’s stock closed up $36.54 a share, or 2.6%, at $1,451.05 on Wednesday, giving the company a market capitalization of $702.5 billion, enough to surpass Microsoft.

Microsoft’s market value stood at $699.2 billion, after its stock jumped $1.40, or 1.6%, to $90.81 on Wednesday.

Apple and Alphabet stand ahead of Amazon as the most valuable companies in the world. Microsoft, now ranked 4th, follows Amazon, ahead of Tencent and Facebook.

Apple has a market capitalization valued at $849.2 billion, while Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has a market cap of $744.8 billion. Facebook, the social network, has a market cap of $521.5 billion.

All of the world’s 6 richest companies are in the technology sector.

The value of ranking of the tech giants was stable throughout 2017, though Amazon has been trending since beating the Top 10 in the 4th quarter of 2015.

“Its market cap has since more than doubled – an increase that turned its founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, into the world’s richest person,” sources reported. “Bezos took the wealth crown earlier this year from his Seattle neighbor and Microsoft co-Bill Gates.”

Amazon’s stock jump has sent Bezos to the top of the list of the world’s richest people in the world. As of Thursday, Bezos’ net worth was valued at $121.3 billion.

Bill Gates dropped down to 2nd place as the richest person in the world. His net worth is valued at over $91 billion.

Gates would have a net worth of more than $150 billion if he’d held onto assets that he’s given away, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He has given away about 700 million Microsoft shares and $2.9 billion of cash and other assets since 1996, according to sources.

Investor Warren Buffet, French magnate Bernard Arnault, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg round out the top 5 richest people.

Amazon has been cheered by many investors as it pushes outside of its main online retail business into brick-and-mortar and high growth segments, such as on-demand video streaming and artificial intelligence.

Revenue of Amazon’s public cloud platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), grew 45% to $5.11 billion in the 4th quarter.

Amazon shares rose 0.11% to $1,463.42 before the opening bell on Friday, while Microsoft shares gained 0.31% at $92.95.

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