U.S. Markets open in 33 mins

The forgotten FAANG: How Microsoft hit $1 trillion

Daniel Howley
Technology Editor

Microsoft (MSFTreported better than expected earnings on Wednesday, briefly pushing the company’s stock price above the $1 trillion point for the first time in its history. The tech giant’s stock is up 30% since December, and was up more than 4% in early trading Thursday.

Microsoft is only the third company to hit the $1 trillion mark. The company’s former chief rival, Apple (AAPL), was the first followed by Amazon (AMZN). Those two have since fallen from those highs, but still have market caps well within the $900 billion range.

The Redmond, Washington-based company’s continued growth puts it in rare company among tech stocks, but it’s, surprisingly, not mentioned in the same breath as the popular FAANG stocks—Facebook (FB), Amazon, Apple, Netflix (NFLX) and Google’s (GOOG, GOOGL) parent company Alphabet. 

But look at Microsoft’s growth over the last five years, and its upward trajectory looks a lot like those other tech companies.

So how did Microsoft seemingly sneak under the radar and close in on Apple and Amazon as one of the most valuable public companies in the U.S.? It’s all about the cloud and the decision to let consumers choose their own devices.

Betting big on the cloud

Like any company as large and old as Microsoft, the software giant has had its fair share of missteps. It missed the boat entirely on the smartphone revolution. And when it did release its own Windows Phone devices, they fell flat. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android, along with their respective app stores, dominated the market. There’s a reason you’re not reading this on a Windows phone.








Microsoft needs to continue to evolve






A version of this story previously ran in November 2018.

More from Dan:
