New Delhi: Microsoft Corp has overtaken Apple Inc as the most valuable public company in terms of market capitalisation.
This development took place earlier on Friday as the shares of the iPhone maker fell about two percent.
Apple took a $6 billion hit to its sales during the fiscal fourth quarter due to persistent global supply chain problems, leading to a miss on Wall Street expectations, according to a Reuters report.
The impact, as per Apple CEO Tim Cook, will be even worse in the current holiday sales quarter.
Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said “compared to less hardware focused FAANG peers, Apple is also a lot more exposed to supply chain disruption”, Reuters reported.
The shares of Apple Inc dropped 1.8 percent to end the session at $149.80, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.48 trillion.
The shares of Windows software maker Microsoft, on the other hand, rose 2.2 percent to a record high of $331.62, ending the session with a market capitalization of $2.49 trillion.
Earlier in April, Apple had announced a massive $90 billion share buyback. The company, which has repurchased $421.7 billion worth of shares over the years, ended its fiscal fourth quarter with 16.4 billion shares.
Microsoft's stock surged 49 percent this year, with pandemic-induced demand for its cloud-based services driving sales.
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Apple overtook Microsoft in 2010 as the world's premier consumer technology company.
The companies have in recent years taken turns as Wall Street's most valuable business.