Over the past years our society has used technology more and more and it has started to embed itself in each corner of our economy. Technology stocks have been one of the best performing long-term stocks there have been. Looking at the S&P 500 index we can see that the technology sector’s weighting has grown from 21% in 2016 to around 28% at the end of 2021.
The net worth that will be shown for each of these tech companies will be either calculated from its market capitalization or the current stock price of the company, multiplied by the number of shares they have.
10. Tencent Holdings
Tencent holdings is a company which was founded in China in 1998. The company was founded based on the idea to try and make the quality of internet life better through adding value-added services to the internet, in essence their principle is to use technology for good. The communication and social services that Tencent Holdings provides lets friends and family stay in contact, lets you easily access transportation, pay for daily expenses you may have or even just to be entertained.
You may not have heard of Tencent Holdings before because they aren’t very popular in the ‘western world’. In China they’re a company who’s behind the country’s most popular messaging app, WeChat, which has over 1.2 billion monthly active users. However, what they’ve achieved doesn’t stop there, Tencent Holdings were also the ones responsible for the creation of QQ.com, which is one of the largest web portals in China, and much more.
Although Tencent Holdings isn’t as popular in the rest of the world as it is in China it has still managed to reach an insane net worth value of $398.39 Billion as of September 5 2022.
9. Nvidia
Nvidia is the global leader in artificial intelligence software and its presence within the gaming industry is enormous because they produce integrated circuits used in electronic game consoles to even personal computers. Not only does Nvidia create integrated circuits but they are also one of the leading companies when it comes to high-end graphics processing units.
The company was first founded by three American scientists, Jen-Hsun Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, in 1993. Although these men created a few good products in their early years it wasn’t till 1997, when they came out with their graphics processors, RIVA, that they became a major force in the computer gaming industry. When NVIDIA came out with their game changing GeForce 256 GPU there was only one other company that was seen as a competitor and that was 3dfx Interactive, however in 2000 NVIDIA was able to purchase all of 3dfx Interactive’s remaining assets which solidified their spot at the top of the gaming industry.
Nvidia has slowly but surely produced many good products over the years building their net worth. The product that produces the most revenue for Nvidia right now is their popular graphics processing unit(GPU). The net worth of this company is now sitting at $339.81 Billion as of September 2022!
8. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC)
One of Taiwan’s largest tech companies is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and is also one of the worlds best semiconductor companies. Semiconductors are tiny electronic circuits which make up the brain for millions of different devices like vehicles, smartphones, medical equipment and more which makes taiwan semiconductor manufacturing even more relevant in this day and age.
The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu, Taiwan under the direction of Morris Chang with help from the government, the tech company Philips and a few private investors. The company has now grown to reach customers over the whole globe, just in 2021 the company was able to manufacture 12,302 thousand products for 535 different customers.
In the beginning of this company’s life it supplied all the big computer component companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and Intel. Chang didn’t believe this was enough though, he wanted to grow trust in the company’s product and to do so he came up with the idea to sell the first chips at a higher rate. This worked in their favour later because the growing profits they were earning allowed TSMC to earn enough capital to start the process on other projects.
During 2020, Taiwan didn’t do so well to protect themselves from the wave of covid, the global pandemic, and the business was forced to slow down tremendously. This in turn caused the shipping process of the chips that were produced because there was a shortage. However they have managed to reach even higher highs from the past and although they have dropped in value from the beginning of 2022 the company now has a net worth of $423.41 Billion.
7. Meta Platforms (Facebook)
Originally, this company was just known as Facebook but they’ve went on to acquire 78 companies from there.
Meta Platforms is now the biggest social media company in the world, they have achieved this through their ownership of some of the most popular social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The company was originally founded in a Harvard dorm room during 2004 by CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. From this beginning the company has grown tremendously to a point where they now have about 3.6 billion monthly active users and also have about 68,000 employees working for this company.
After 18 years this company has managed to go from being run in a Harvard dorm room to having a net worth of $422.375 Billion.
6. Samsung Electronics
Samsung was initially founded to function as a grocery trading store in 1938, by Lee Byung-Chull, in Taegu, Korea. In their earliest days they began by trading noodles and other goods which we produced throughout the city and they’d export these to China and its other provinces.
The company later expanded into selling textiles and opened the largest woollen mill in Korea after the Korean War. The goal of the company, after the war, was to focus heavily on industrialization to help the country redevelop itself.
Samsung had only entered the electronic industry in 1969 with a few different electronics-focused divisions. Among their first electronic products were black-and-white televisions. Then during the period of 1970 to 1980 Samsung experienced a rapid expansion of its technology. After this period samsung had a continual, steady growth seen in the electronics.
During the 2000s samsung came out with their first Samsung galaxy, which is now part of their famous Samsung Galaxy smartphone series. The birth of this product had not only become the company’s most famous products but also went on to become some of the best-selling mobile smartphones in the entire world.
By the end of the year 2020, Samsung electronics semiconductor segment had become the biggest source of revenue for the company and has helped them alot in achieving a net worth value of around $500 Billion.
5. Tesla
Tesla was founded in 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, but only released their first car in 2008, the Roadster. This car was used to unveil Tesla’s amazing, never before seen, battery technology and electric powertrain. From that moment one tesla hasn’t stopped growing and now produces 4 different premium electric car models to the public.
Despite what many people may think Elon Musk wasn’t actually the founder of Tesla nor was he the CEO. Elon Musk only joined Tesla during 2004 by making a sizeable investment of $6.5 million into the company. He then took the role as CEO in 2008 and was actually Tesla’s fourth CEO.
However over the years as Tesla has grown they have begun to create an entire sustainable energy ecosystem by manufacturing different energy solutions such as Powerwall, Powerpack and Solar Roof. These energy solutions are now being used by homeowners and businesses to generate renewable energy or manage consumption.
Now, from starting with very little and relying on investors in the begining, Tesla has managed to build a huge name for themselves not only in the electric car industry but in the car industry as a whole and now has a total net worth value of $902.72 Billion.
4. Amazon.com
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, quit his job as an executive at D.E.Shaw in 1994 to move to Seattle and start founding Amazon in his home garage with MacKenzie, his wife, as the company’s accountant. Amazon then officially opened for business on July 16, 1995.
Just three years later, during 1997, Amazon went public and made Jeff Bezos a billionaire. However, even after Bezos had earned his billions he kept driving his same car, the honda accord, explaining to an interviewer that it is a “perfectly good car”.
In 2005 Amazon debuted Prime which was a $79 annual subscription which offered two-day shipping on everything you bought. Then fast forward to 17 years later, 2022, the company has over 200 million U.S. Prime members.
From Amazon starting in Jeff Bezos’ garage and having his wife employed as the accountant, the company has grown tremendously and now has a net worth value of $1.430 Trillion.
3. Alphabet
During the year 2006 Google managed to acquire the web’s most popular site YouTube, for $1.65 billion in stock. This move was a great step in order to show the company’s effort to expand their services past just internet searches but to user-submitted streaming videos as well.
Alphabet, Inc was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2015 as a multinational holding company. Google is the largest company which Alphabet has in its collection, brands like Youtube and FitBit which originally fall under the Google name are now considered to be homed by Alphabet instead.
Although Alphabet wasn’t started with nothing it has still come a long way and now has a net worth value of $1.439 Trillion.
2. Microsoft
Microsoft was founded during 1975, an era when most people were still using typewriters. Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who were childhood friends, were the ones who created this company which makes computer software.
When microsoft was originally founded it was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico however during 1979 it was moved to Washington State which is where it grew into a huge multinational technology corporation. Thereafter during 1987, after the company had just gone public, Bill Gates had become the first world’s youngest billionaire at just 31 years of age.
From 1975 to 2022 Microsoft has grown from having a net worth of $0 to now having a net worth of $2.135 Trillion.
- Apple
Apple is a company that was founded in 1976 by three young men; Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. These young men started with a vision, which was to be able to take your computer places, like to your work or even have one in your own home, by making them smaller.
Apple is now a corporation who designs, manufactures and then sells mobile devices, personal computers, media devices and even a vast range of software and services personalised for their apple users. The iphone is the most valuable product that apple has, since 2008 and has been the companies main source of revenue.
From the year 1976 to 2022 apple has grown from the ground up and has a net worth value of $2.810 Trillion.