American court in California has declared that Korean conglomerate of electronics Samsung had infringed the patent of Apple and is obliged to pay 1 bln. dollar fine. At this point judges will consider the possibility of imposing a band on US sales of some devices produced by Samsung. The Californian company has recently submitted into the court a list of devices, which it supposes to be violating the patent rights, thus requiring exclusion from retail sales in the USA.
Apple has recently become the richest corporation ever, with current market capitalization amounting to 633 billion dollars. The shares of the technological leader have reached 665.15 dollars cash. The company’s production capacity during this quarter has corresponded to the analysts’ prediction, thus making it the best period in Apple’s history. The previous of the richest corporation belong to Microsoft as of December 30, 1999 – 618 900 000 000 dollars.
Only two companies, Apple and Samsung, have currently “engulfed” the market of smart-phones:
At this point the share of other companies in the sphere looks rather vague in comparison to Samsung and Apple.
Having a closer look at AAPL, the charts show that the company is having a steady growth since 2007 (both, earning capacity and sales), with highest growth at the end of 2011 (when Warren Buffett made a public statement about buying a considerable part of AAPL shares):
Taking into consideration such growth rates of most capitalized company worldwide (Market Cap 623.60B, Sales - 148.81B), one certainly recalls the examples of similar “giants”, the growth of which happened in the times of crisis:
As far as AAPL currently is the largest company worldwide, any problems that it encounters immediately influence the general market trend. So, what will happen to the market if its another masterpiece flops, or if its problems are revealed?
At this point numerous managers have exit their assets from various securities and invested into AAPL, but for how long will the company manage to maintain the leading position? The market of consumers is limited, and the history of largest companies may be repeated...
