TECH - Apple's Market Cap Might Be Way Bigger Than Google's — But Which Tech Giant Delivered Better Stock Returns This Year? | Benzinga
Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) holds the largest market capitalization today at $3.021 trillion.
Google, founded in 1988 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, now operates as Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) with a market cap of $1.722 trillion.
Despite the companies’ different business models — Apple as a hardware giant and Google/Alphabet as a search and advertising giant — their history reveals a complex relationship. In 2001, Google’s co-founders considered Jobs as their CEO, but after the iPhone launch and Google’s acquisition of Android, tensions arose.
At Apple's 2010 town meeting, Jobs famously said, "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake, they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them. This ‘don’t be evil' mantra is bullshit.”
While Google is the default search engine on Apple products, recent reports suggest Apple receives substantial payments for maintaining this status.
Both companies compete in various sectors, including mobile phones, applications, and services, such as mapping apps, app stores, music services, and cloud storage.
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