Technology & Business1980–2025

Most Valuable Public Companies

Forty-five years of the world's biggest companies by market value, from AT&T and IBM through Japan's bubble-era giants to today's AI-fueled trillion-dollar club. Watch NTT dwarf everything in 1987, Microsoft rule the dot-com peak, and Nvidia rocket from obscurity to #1.

Source: Public market data (Bloomberg, CRSP, company filings) Year-end market caps; pre-2000 figures are year-end estimates converted to USD. Updated 2026-07-03

The race in numbers

17lead changes
45years covered
21contenders
NTTlongest reign — 6 yrs at #1

Final standings · 2025

  1. 1Nvidia$3.90T
  2. 2Microsoft$3.70T
  3. 3Apple$3.20T
  4. 4Alphabet (Google)$2.40T
  5. 5Amazon$2.30T

Key moments