On Wednesday, July 30th, Microsoft released a strong fourth-quarter financial report, driving its stock price up nearly 5% on Thursday, pushing its market value above $4 trillion for the first time, making it the second company to surpass the $4 trillion mark after chipmaker Nvidia.
This milestone achievement comes just 18 months after Microsoft crossed the $3 trillion market value threshold. Just a few weeks ago on July 9th, Nvidia became the first company to reach a $4 trillion market value, while Apple currently sits at a market value of $3.12 trillion.
Microsoft reported an 18% revenue growth, the fastest pace in over three years, thanks to strong sales performance in its Azure cloud computing business. Microsoft disclosed Azure revenue in US dollars for the first time and stated that sales of Azure and other cloud services will exceed $75 billion in fiscal year 2025, a 34% increase from the previous year.
Analysts point out that Microsoft’s Copilot AI is driving “significant growth” for the Microsoft 365 enterprise suite.
Both Nvidia and Microsoft have benefited significantly from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022, Microsoft’s stock price has soared over 110%.
In contrast, Apple ranks third in market value, with its stock price dropping 17% this year as investors worry about the tech giant falling behind in the field of artificial intelligence. Apple is set to announce its quarterly earnings after the market closes on Thursday.
Additionally, the latest breakthrough in US trade negotiations before the August 1st deadline set by Trump has boosted the stock market, leading the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices to hit historic highs.
In 2025, among the tech giants, Nvidia has shown the best stock performance, rising by 33%. The graphics processing units (GPUs) from this chipmaker are integral to the large language models being developed by companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta, etc., with Nvidia’s GPUs filling data centers being constructed by these companies.