by Felix Richter, Statista.com
Ten years ago, the world was a different place: the smartphone as we know it hadn’t been invented, Facebook was still in its infancy and ExxonMobile was worth six times as much as Apple.
What a difference ten years make.
Last Friday, for a brief period of time, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon were the five most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, relegating ExxonMobile, the long-time leader in this category to a sixth place. And even though the oil company has since clawed its way back into the Top 5, the composition of the list clearly illustrates how important the digital economy has become over the past few years.
Ten years ago, the list of most valuable companies was dominated by big oil and multinational conglomerates. These days, it’s companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon dominating the headlines.
This chart shows the most valuable companies in the world in 2006 and in 2016.
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