FAAMG Surpasses $8 Trillion Market Cap Despite COVID-19... Doubled in 5 Years

FAAMG's total market capitalization weight in the S&P index (Source: WSJ)

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] The combined market capitalization of the so-called 'FAAMG'?Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google?representing the US IT industry, has approached one-quarter of the total market capitalization of the S&P 500, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 2nd (local time).

As of the closing price that day, the combined market value of the five major US big tech companies reached $8.3731 trillion (approximately 9,353 trillion KRW), surpassing $8 trillion. WSJ commented, "This is double the level from five years ago," adding, "Even without COVID-19, the influence of tech companies would have continued to expand, but COVID-19 has propelled it to an unimaginable level."

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the global stock market has continued to soar largely due to the role of the US FAAMG. Last week, FAAMG announced that their Q1 earnings this year showed the fastest growth rate in recent years.

Apple, which holds the top spot in market capitalization (approximately $2.207 trillion), recorded its highest-ever Q1 revenue of $47 billion, a 54% surge compared to the same period last year. Apple enjoyed a boom as sales of electronic products including iPhones, Macs, and iPads maintained double-digit growth rates for two consecutive quarters.

Microsoft (approximately $1.899 trillion) also saw a 19% increase in revenue. The daily active users of Microsoft’s workplace platform Teams doubled year-over-year to 145 million.

Amazon (approximately $1.748 trillion), the biggest beneficiary of COVID-19, earned net profits from April last year to March this year that exceeded the total of the past three years. To meet the surge in non-face-to-face demand caused by COVID-19, Amazon massively hired employees, increasing its US workforce from 500,000 a year ago to 950,000 currently.

Alphabet, Google's parent company (approximately $1.596 trillion), saw advertising revenue through YouTube soar by 49%, while Facebook (approximately $923.1 billion) surpassed 3.45 billion users across its social networking service (SNS) platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, a 15% increase compared to the previous year.