Microsoft becomes third US firm to reach $1trn valuation

Today, software giant Microsoft became the third US-listed company to have its market capitalization reach US$1trn. Joining the ‘four comma club’, Microsoft can now be counted alongside Amazon and Apple, which both hit the $1trn mark in Q3 2018.

Driven by exceptional Q1 performance, Microsoft is now the most valuable company in the world, after a brief struggle with Apple over the past month. The company’s shares on Thursday traded at a high of $131.37 each, a rise of around 5.1%.

Over the past five years, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has guided the company’s transformation into a cloud computing leader. Alongside Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure, is the premier service in the industry.

The company’s success in the software as a service (SaaS) cloud computing space is, according to a New York Times report, a key factor in its strong financial performance. With revenues of $30.6bn, and profits rising by 19% year-on-year to $8.8bn, Microsoft managed to exceed all investor expectations, returning $7.4bn to its shareholders at the close of the 2018 financial year.

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With its new valuation, Microsoft’s market capitalization is now greater than the gross domestic product of The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.

“Leading organizations of every size in every industry trust the Microsoft cloud. We are accelerating our innovation across the cloud and edge so our customers can build the digital capability increasingly required to compete and grow,” said Nadella in a press release.