Amazon On Path To Beat Apple To The $1T Mark

Apple needs to watch its back: Amazon might just beat the world’s most valuable publicly listed company to the $1 trillion mark.

While Reuters reports that Apple’s market capitalization has reached $893 billion – $141 billion more than the $752 billion market value of Amazon – the eCommerce giant has been quickly gaining steam.

Amazon’s stock surged 83 percent over the past year, and if its stock continues growing at this pace, the company’s market capitalization would hit $1 trillion in late August. Apple would reach that mark around a week later if its stock price grew at the same pace as it has over the past year.

Much of Amazon’s growth is attributed to its quick increase in revenue, a result of more retailers selling online and businesses moving their computing operations to the cloud, where Amazon Web Services is the leader in the market.

In addition, the company announced a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to address health care for their U.S. employees, focusing on reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction. Its initial focus will be on using technology to provide U.S. employees and their families with easier, high-quality, transparent health care at a reasonable cost.

Reuters noted that this news was seen as a challenge to the health care industry and proof of Amazon’s ability to disrupt markets. Amazon took over the spot as the number three U.S. company by market capitalization in February, dethroning Microsoft.

For Apple, there have been concerns that demand for the new iPhone X has not been as enthusiastic as expected, which could impact its stock prices down the line.

As for the number two U.S. company in market capitalization, Alphabet, its stock has grown about 33 percent over the past year – much slower than Amazon’s. If it continues to move at this pace, Alphabet would not reach $1 trillion until 2019.