Apple is jumping into the credit card transaction business, and it’s market-cap is 1.9 times are large as the 4 leading credit card companies American Express (AXP), Visa (V), MasterCard (MA) and Discovery Financial Services (DFS). Apple has 2.4 times there net income and 2.8 times their revenue. They are much larger than the industry they are entering.
The credit card companies work through banks, and Apple’s market-cap is larger than 3 of the 4 largest banks Wells Fargo (WFC), JP Morgan (JPM), and Citi (C) — and about 12% smaller than the top 4, if Bank of America (BAC) is included.
Apple is significantly larger that the two companies that provide the most competition for the iPhone — Google (GOOGL) and Samsung (SSNFY)
And, Apple’s market-cap is 1.8 times the combined market-cap of thee 3 top wireless phone companies on which iPhone runs in the U.S. — AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S).
For industrial comparison, Apple is larger than EXXON (XOM), Chevron (CVX) and Conoco (COP) compined
And they are lot larger than most of the auto manufacturing industry: Toyota (TMC), Daimler (DAIY), Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Honda (HMC), Nissan (NSANY).
Apple is 3.85% of the S&P 500 and has a market-cap almost as much as the next 2 (Exxon and Microsoft at 4.05%); and it is almost 18% of the S&P 500 technology sector.
Bloomberg today, said Apple is about 15% larger than the entire Spanish stock market (trading at 20.9 times earnings versus Apple trading at 16.8 times earnings). Apple’s market-cap is about 1.8 times the market-cap of Russia’s stock market, which is up about 15% YTD (and trading at 8.7 times earnings).
When will the law of large numbers will catch up to Apple is a big question. People have been saying they can’t keep up the growth for several years now. Eventually, they will be right, but when?