Newsletter
Samsung Electronic’s market cap has now hit $241 billion, making it the sixteenth highest-placed company in the world, according to reports coming out of South Korea earlier today. The figure is based on Samsung’s stock price on March 3 and, represents an increase of almost $95 billion from the same period last year. That was when the company had an overall market value of around $146 billion, and was the thirty-ninth placed company, globally. Which means it has leapfrogged twenty-three companies on the list over the past year, thanks to a rapid increase in its stock price during the period. As of today, Samsung’s shares closed at 2,010,000 won ($1,739) on the KRX (Korea Exchange), having hit an all-time high of 2,024,000 earlier in the day.
Samsung may be facing corruption investigations at home and its most recent high-profile smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7, had to be withdrawn from the market late last year after several documented cases of fires and explosions, but the company’s stock prices have been soaring to new heights every week. The company seems to be benefiting from a global trend of bullishness towards tech companies, which has resulted in tech firms, big and small, seeing an astronomical growth in their market caps over the past year. Apple has been the biggest beneficiary of the ongoing bull market with a $170.6 billion increase in its market cap. Amazon has also seen its aggregate book value increase by $133.6 billion recently.
Many of the other leading technology companies are also seeing a steady increase in their stock prices, with usual suspects Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Alibaba leading the charge. While Social networking giant Facebook’s market cap has risen by $84.5 billion over the past year, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has seen its market cap increase by $83.9 billion during the same period. Microsoft’s market value has increased by $82.4 billion over the past twelve months, while Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s market cap has grown by $82 billion during the same time. It will be interesting to see whether the stock market optimism will be met by growth in the real economy, especially with geo-political tensions around the world showing no signs of abating.