Aramco Overtakes Apple as World’s Most Valuable Company on First Day of Trading

Apple has officially been dethroned as the world’s most valuable company when Saudi Arabia’s Aramco started trading publicly on Wednesday.

Shares of Aramco surged 10 percent (the daily limit) in the first few moments on the stock market. It held that position until closing on Wednesday, pushing the company’s value up to $1.88 trillion, CBS News reported.

Apple is currently valued at about $1.2 trillion. The Cupertino tech giant had held the top spot as the world’s largest publicly traded company since February. Microsoft has trailed closely behind, even overtaking Apple for a brief time in November 2018.

Back in August 2018, Apple also became the first company in the world to reach a $1 trillion market valuation.

Aramco, also known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a national petroleum and gas company based in Saudi Arabia. By some metrics, it’s the most profitable company in the world and the largest company in terms of revenue.

On Wednesday, it also became the world’s largest company on the stock market. Aramco’s valuation is almost $1 billion more than all of its competitors combined. (The valuations for BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Chevron add up to about $904.6 billion.)

Earlier this year, Markets Insider reported that Apple was worth more than the entirety of the U.S. energy sector with a valuation of $1.16 trillion, compared to the S&P 500 Energy index’s worth of $1.13 trillion.

Aramco has eclipsed those numbers with its $1.9 trillion valuation. Interestingly enough, that number means that if Aramco were a country, it could have the 9th largest GDP and would be placed ahead of both Brazil and Canada.

Dalma Capital CEO Zachary Cefaratti also told CBS News that Aramco could become the world’s first company valued at $2 trillion if it sees another day of 10 percent gains.