Apple in context
Some of Apple's story happened outside its own product line: the company climbing to the most valuable on Earth, and the phone platform it launched reshaping the market around it. Press play, or scrub through the years.
Forty-five years of the world’s biggest companies by market value. Watch NTT dwarf everything in 1987, Microsoft rule the dot-com peak, Apple pass ExxonMobil in 2011, and Nvidia rocket to #1.
Source: public market data (Bloomberg, CRSP, filings) · year-end market caps · updated 2026-07-03
In 2007 Nokia’s Symbian owned nearly two thirds of smartphone sales. Then the iPhone and Android arrived and rewrote the market in under four years, and it’s been a duopoly ever since.
Source: Gartner / StatCounter · share of smartphone sales · updated 2026-07-03
Animated charts adapted from Overtake, a companion data project.
