Most valuable in the world across all industries? None. Most valuable tech company? Plenty.
None of the polymers and plastics to MAKE those iPhones.
iPhones have very little plastic compared to the competition. But I get your point.
I can see Microsoft being close to the same valuation as XOM - they make about the same product, and much of modern life everywhere in the world revolves around a PC and computer systems.
The killer difference is that Microsoft's products are very easily and economically replaced by others of equal or better usefulness. You have to get oil from someone. You don't need what Microsoft makes at all.
Microsoft is old, fat and slow. Microsoft has lost the innovative spark. That signals a death watch in the tech industry, the same death watch Apple was on in the late 90s before Jobs' return. Microsoft is mainly running on momentum. An obese man takes longer to die when deprived of food than a thin one.
there's a reason Nokia sells 260,000 phones a day
Yeah, they're cheap. So cheap in fact that Nokia makes very little profit off of most of them.
they're reliable, they make great calls, they last forever on a charge, and they're durable
True there. My old Nokia phones were great. My Android is slow to make or receive calls, has spotty reception, poor battery life and is already pretty dinged and scratched up.
Great! Then we at least agree that this Motley Fool column is bunk - there's no way Apple would be the most valuable company in the world, as they claim. It doesn't make an sense at all.
We can argue tech, perhaps, but as far as across all industries (which is what the Motley Fool stated), it's a flight of fancy.
The killer difference is that Microsoft's products are very easily and economically replaced by others of equal or better usefulness.
And you can say the same about Apple, too. Both rely upon "lock in" from their respective ecosystems. Microsoft from the other software you've bought, and Apple from the hardware accessories you've bought.
And as Apple's offerings in a given market are usually at the high end in terms of price, it's even MORE economical to replace them.
Yeah, they're cheap. So cheap in fact that Nokia makes very little profit off of most of them.
But they dominate the growing markets of Asia and Africa. That's where a LOT of the phone market growth is coming, and Nokia is huge there. As the US market saturates with smartphones, where does Apple go? Do they have sub-$300 offerings that could be sold in those overseas markets?
Apple has always ran on the strength of its domestic sales; overseas, not so much. But the US economy as a whole is slowing down, while Asia (especially SE Asia - China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, etc - the ASEAN countries) is exploding. Yes, they have much lower GDPs, but they also have 3.3 BILLION people! That's a LOT more consumers.
Anyway, tech we can debate - who would be the most valuable. But as far as overall in all industries? The Fool's been smoking the funny weed, and anyone who thinks he's right has probably puffed a bit too much as well (either that or drank too much Kool Aid).