Oil Giant Saudi Aramco Dethrones Apple As World's Most Valuable Company

Oil giant Saudi Aramco has dethroned Apple as the world's most valuable company. This comes amidst the surging oil prices which drove up the company's shares and tech stocks on the other hand, slumped.

The Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company is believed to be the largest oil-producing company in the world and one of the world's largest companies by revenue.

Saudi Aramco was valued at $2.42 trillion yesterday, based on the price of its shares at the close of market, as per AFP news.

Meanwhile, Apple was amongst the tech stocks that witnessed its share price drop over the past month.

Apple, which had become the world's first company to hit the $3 trillion valuation in January 2022, was valued at $2.37 trillion when official trading ended yesterday.

Earlier, Apple had surpassed Saudi Aramco to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2020.

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The sinking share price came despite Apple reporting better-than-expected profits in the first quarter of this year amid strong consumer demand, according to the financial results revealed last month.

However, Apple had recently warned that the China Covid-19 lockdown and ongoing supply chain woes could dent June quarter results by $4 to $8 billion.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco, on the other hand, recently reported a 124% net profit surge for last year.

As the world economy started to rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic, "Aramco's net income increased by 124% to $110.0 billion in 2021, compared to $49.0 billion in 2020," the company said, as per AFP news.

The company, which is one of the world's top crude exporters, has reportedly been under pressure to raise output as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions against Moscow have roiled global energy markets.

Energy stocks and prices have been rising as investors continue to sell off equities in several industries, including technology, on fears of a deteriorating economic environment. Apple shares have fallen nearly 20% since its $182.94 peak on Jan 4th 2022, whereas Aramco stock is up over 27% so far in 2022. as per CNBC report.

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What Saudi Aramco's CEO Said

Saudi Aramco's President and CEO Amin Nasser cautioned that the company's outlook remained uncertain due in part to "geopolitical factors".

He said "We continue to make progress on increasing our crude oil production capacity, executing our gas expansion program and increasing our liquids to chemicals capacity."

Speaking on the financial results, he acknowledged that "economic conditions have improved considerably".

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