The most valuable companies in the world: 1980, 2000 and 2023

In the age of smartphones and artificial intelligence, it's no surprise that the stock market in 2023 will be dominated by technology. Seven technology companies, including Apple, Amazon and Tesla, occupy the top 10. According to data from the trading platform City Index, Apple is the most valuable company in history with a market capitalization of 2.82 trillion euros. Apple was founded in 1976 and went public in 1980. It was only in 2011 that it became the most valuable company in the world for the first time, with a value of 326.6 billion euros. It thus replaced ExxonMobil at the top. For most of the 2010s, it was the largest company in the world, and in 2018 it became the first U.S. company to exceed $1 trillion (933.2 billion euros) in value. Two years later, it surpassed $2 trillion (1.866 trillion euros).

The 10 largest companies today:

Microsoft is the second-largest company in 2023, with a market capitalization of €2.34 trillion, thanks to its market-leading cloud computing services Microsoft Azure and its stake in OpenAI. However, the products that gave the company supremacy in 2000 - including Windows and Office - still account for a large portion of its revenue. Microsoft was already the most valuable company in the world in 2000; adjusted for inflation, it is worth more than three times as much today (2.34 trillion euros).

The year 2000: technology companies in the fast lane

Similar to today, technology companies were very present on the stock market in 2000. Companies such as Microsoft, Cisco and Intel occupied half of the top 10, compared with only one (IBM) 20 years earlier. Only two oil and gas companies were in the top 10 in 2000: ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell. In 2000, Microsoft topped the stock market with a value of €546 billion (€967.51 billion today), but was hit hard by the dot-com crash. By March 2001, the company's value had fallen to $258 billion (€240.7 billion), less than half its peak. This was partly due to the verdict in United States v. Microsoft, in which MSFT was found guilty of monopolization. In 2003, however, MSFT became the world's largest company again and was the world's largest technology company until the rise of Apple in the early 2010s.

The largest companies of the year 2000:

The world of 1980 was still another

The world's most valuable companies from 40 years ago look very different from those of 2000 and today, although they include many familiar names. In 1980, technology companies did not yet dominate the stock market; instead, the oil and gas sector was a major force, with six oil and gas companies in the top 10. Nevertheless, IBM was the largest company in the world in 1980, with a market capitalization of 32.29 billion euros (119.55 billion euros today). However, at that time IBM faced serious competition in the personal and business computing space. New entrants were challenging the company's crown, and by 1981 the company was no longer at the top of the stock markets. By the mid-1980s, "Big Blue" was leading again. However, with a current value of $130 billion (€121.3 billion), which is roughly the same as in 1980 when adjusted for inflation, the stock has underperformed the market as a whole.

The largest companies of 1980:

Source: City Index