Technology has become inescapable in everyday life, and the top tech companies are advancing in many sectors, from computer hardware and software to cleantech to artificial intelligence (AI) and more.
Major moves from the tech industry’s giants have been reflected in growing stock valuations.
In 2018, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) became the first publicly traded company to reach a US$1 trillion valuation, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) passed the US$1 trillion mark in 2019. Since then, both of these tech behemoths have gone on to reach further gargantuan valuations, in large part due to their advancements in AI technology.
Apple became the first company to surpass a market cap of US$3 trillion in June 2023, and it was followed by Microsoft in January 2024. As of mid-April, both Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google holding company Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) were on the verge of overtaking US$2 trillion in market valuations as well.
Top technology stocks
1. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Market cap: US$3.06 trillion
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is well versed in hardware and software. Its hardware lineup consists of its flagship Surface brand, which is a competitor for Microsoft’s archrival Apple and its iPad Pros and MacBooks.
The company’s software portfolio has always been a strong focus. That includes its computer operating system, where Microsoft’s Windows 11 debuted in Q4 2021, as well as its Windows Server. Furthermore, Microsoft has been targeting business users with its productivity suite, which includes the Office and Cloud platforms. These, along with its Azure platform, which includes machine learning and AI, have become major revenue generators for the tech giant.
Early last year, Microsoft announced ‘a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment’ in privately held OpenAI to help the AI research lab with ChatGPT, its ultra-powerful AI chatbot. In April, the company announced plans to invest US$1.5 billion in United Arab Emirates-based AI tech holding company G42. The collaboration will see G42 run its AI applications and services on Microsoft Azure so the partners can deliver advanced AI solutions to clients. The partnership also includes establishing advanced AI and digital infrastructure in the Middle Eastern, Central Asian and African regions.
2. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Market cap: US$2.6 trillion
Next on this top technology stocks list is Apple. Since the company shot to fame with the Macintosh computer in 1984, its hardware portfolio has expanded to include items like the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. The company also has a wide range of digital services, such as the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud.
According to Statista, Apple’s digital services segment raked in all-time high revenues of US$23.12 billion during the first quarter of its 2024 fiscal year; that’s compared to US$20.77 billion for the previous year.
3. NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)
Market cap: US$2.13 trillion
NVIDIA, the inventor of the graphics processing unit (GPU), creates interactive graphics on laptops, workstations, mobile devices, notebooks, PCs and more. Alongside GPUs, NVIDIA offers processing capabilities to scientific researchers with supercomputing sites across the globe. The primary arms of NVIDIA’s business model are in gaming (including its cloud gaming service GeForce Now), automotive electronics, mobile devices and more recently AI.
The company’s major competitors are Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM). NVIDIA is working with Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) to build the latter’s AI supercomputer, which the former expects will be the largest NVIDIA DGX A100 customer system to date.
The company is also working with Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) on more AI offerings for enterprises, including the new Dell AI Factory. ‘AI factories are central to creating intelligence on an industrial scale,’ said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang in a March press release. ‘Together, NVIDIA and Dell are helping enterprises create AI factories to turn their proprietary data into powerful insights.’
4. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)
Market cap: US$1.94 trillion
Alphabet, the holding company of internet search giant Google, operates through multiple brands via a portfolio of companies. Some of the companies under Alphabet are Calico, GV, Capital G, Verily, Waymo, X and Google Fiber.
Founded in 1998 as a search engine, Google quickly became a household name with numerous products under its vertical. The list now includes Google Pay, Google Cloud, Android, Google Maps and YouTube.
In November 2021, Alphabet briefly broke through the US$2 trillion market cap level and the company looks set to do it again soon. Its revenues have been growing steadily for years. The tech firm’s revenue for the 12 months ended on December 31, 2023, came to US$307.4 billion, up 8.68 percent year-on-year.
5. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
Market cap: US$1.88 trillion
Founded in 1994, Amazon has evolved from its start as an online retailer to become a tech monolith through its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. While Amazon is still a dominant force in web-based sales, AWS offers a broad range of services for computing, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and AI, among others. Furthermore, Fire TV, Amazon’s streaming platform, had sold more than 200 million streaming devices worldwide as of March 2023.
Amazon’s Internet of Things (IoT) service, called AWS IoT FleetWise, allows automakers to collect, transform and transfer vehicle data to the cloud in near-real time more efficiently and cost effectively than was previously available. The data can then be organized and standardized for analysis in the cloud.
AWS’ Q4 2023 revenue was US$24.2 billion, up 13 percent from the same quarter the previous year. This growth pattern over the past few years has allowed AWS to crack an annualized revenue run rate of US$100 billion.
6. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Market cap: US$1.25 trillion
Meta Platforms, the parent company of social media giant Facebook, occupies the sixth spot on this list. Its product suite — which also includes Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Meta Quest — connects more than 3.59 billion users.
Meta shared early versions of its Llama 3 AI language model in April, along with a new real-time image generator. Both will be integrated into its Meta AI virtual assistant as the tech company tries to compete with its peers in the generative AI space.
7. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE:TSM,TPE:2330)
Market cap: US$718.23 billion
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was born in the late 1980s as a semiconductor innovator. Since then, it’s spawned a tech division focused on automotive tech, AI and 5G applications, plus wearable tech and mobile platforms.
The company’s net revenues for the first quarter of 2024 came in at 592.64 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$18.87 billion at the time of the announcement), up 16.5 percent from the year prior. The increase in net profit was driven by a boom in demand for advanced chips used in AI applications.
8. Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO)
Market cap: US$599.96 billion
Broadcom, another global semiconductor giant, offers a number of embedded and mainframe security solutions, including payment authentication software and the Symantec Enterprise Cloud suite of integrated cybersecurity software.
Broadcom bolstered its infrastructure software capabilities with the acquisition of VMWare in late 2023. “Broadcom’s focus moving forward is to enable enterprise customers to create and modernize their private and hybrid cloud environments,” states a press release from the company. “At the core, Broadcom will invest in VMware Cloud Foundation, the software stack that serves as the foundation of private and hybrid clouds.”
The company’s Symantec division has a partnership with Google Cloud to embed generative AI into the Symantec Security platform to help customers prevent cyber attacks.
9. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)
Market cap: US$497.24 billion
Tesla is one of the world’s most influential tech companies. Aside from focusing on the electric vehicle (EV) market, the company is also innovating in AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and energy storage. The company has a partnership with Panasonic (OTC Pink:PCRFF,TSE:6752) to produce lithium-ion batteries for its EVs.
Tesla’s EV sales grew by more than 37 percent in 2023 over the previous year to reach more than 1,808,590 units delivered. Still, Tesla’s market cap lost nearly 17 percent of its value from April 17, 2023 to April 17, 2024. Several market factors are responsible for the decline decline, including an expected drop in EV sales as a global recession sets in.
10. Samsung Electronics (KRX:005930)
Market cap: US$379.32 billion
Samsung Electronicsis the 10th largest tech company in the world. Founded in 1938, it originated as a grocery trading store. It then focused on the textiles industry after the Korean War ended in 1953, and 1969 was when it first entered the electronics industry. It is now among the largest electronics manufacturers in the world.
In addition to products such as tablets, smartphones, watches and even appliances, Samsung operates a semiconductor business, developing chips and smartphone application processors.
Its most recent product brought to market is the LPDDR5X DRAM, which it says is optimized for AI application and has the smallest chip size among existing LPDDRs. “As demand for low-power, high-performance memory increases, LPDDR DRAM is expected to expand its applications from mainly mobile to other areas that traditionally require higher performance and reliability such as PCs, accelerators, servers and automobiles,” said YongCheol Bae, executive vice president of memory product planning in Samsung’s Memory Business.
Securities Disclosure: I, Melissa Pistilli, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.