Microsoft joins Apple in the £2 trillion valuation club
The Redmond giant is only the second company to reach the milestone, but more tech firms are expected to follow
Microsoft became the second technology company to reach a market valuation of $2 trillion on Tuesday.
The Redmond-based company only trails fellow tech behemoth Apple among the world's most valuable companies, with the latter reaching the $2 trillion milestone in August last year.
The Cupertino giant currently stands at $2.24 trillion and the likes of Google and Amazon are said to also be closing in on the landmark valuation, highlighting the strength of technology companies in today's market.
Microsoft's success is partly down to its bets on cloud computing and gaming, with both contributing heavily to its quarterly revenues during the pandemic. The firm recently posted $41.7 billion in revenue for the quarter ending in March 2021, marking a 19% year-on-year increase.
The firm has also made lots of gains in the business communication market. Its Microsoft Teams platform has seen dramatic growth throughout 2020, surpassing 75 million users as most of the world went into lockdown.
The success of Teams is underpinned by another of Microsoft's big bets; its Azure cloud platform. In January, the firm reported that revenues from Azure increased 50% year-on-year as it consolidated its status as the number two cloud provider, behind AWS, as digital transformation demands increased during the COVID crisis.
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Microsoft's new valuation comes ahead of its big Windows 11 event, where the firm is set to showcase the biggest change to its flagship operating system since the launch of Windows 10. A build of the OS has reportedly leaked online already and suggests a complete overhaul of the design.
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