Earlier this week, Microsoft Corporation’s market value hit the US$2 trillion mark, making it the second publicly traded U.S. company to achieve such feat.
The tech giant’s rise in market value catalysed by bets that its dominance in cloud computing and enterprise software will expand further in a post-coronavirus world.
According to estimates from global market intelligence firm, IDC and tech market analyst firm, Canalys, Microsoft’s growth is connected with the 10% growth in PC market in 2020, due to the lockdown necessitated by the covid-19 outbreak.
Microsoft also received a boost after the announcement of Windows 11, which could drive upgrades for people whose computers do not meet the minimum requirements.
Microsoft corp’s shares rose as much as 1.2% on Tuesday, enough for the software company to briefly join Apple Inc. as one of only two companies with $2 trillion value.
Since Chief Executive Officer, Satya Nadella, took over in 2014, Microsoft has been reshaped into the largest seller of cloud-computing software, counting both its infrastructure and Office application cloud units.
According to Microsoft, the company’s Intelligent Cloud segment brought in $48 billion alone in its 2020 fiscal year.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Microsoft has gained 19% so far this year, outperforming Apple and Amazon.
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Microsoft, which was co-founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, created the personal-computer software industry and dominated the market for PC operating systems and Office software for years.
The company’s market cap briefly rose above $2 trillion earlier this week, but it later fell below the mark by the time markets closed.
At the close of business yesterday, however, Microsoft was able to end with a market cap of $2.009 trillion,
Although, it took Microsoft 33 years from its IPO to reach its first $1 trillion in value in 2019, it only took about two years, amidst Covid-19 pandemic, to reach $2 trillion.