Top 25 tech giants gain $2 trillion market cap, defy economic headwinds

Despite the economic downturn, top 25 global technology companies managed to gain more than $2 trillion in valuation during a challenging second quarter (Q2) this year, a report showed on Thursday.

Overall, the top 25 tech companies gained a whopping $4.5 trillion in the first half (H1) of 2023, reveals GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Graphics chip major Nvidia gained over 50 per cent in market cap in Q2 and almost 200 per cent since January.

“Nvidia continued to spearhead the surge. The company, which witnessed over 90 per cent increase in market value in Q1 2023, had another impressive quarter, recording a 52 per cent increase in market value in Q2 2023,” said Gracio Benher, business fundamentals analyst at GlobalData.

Other companies, which had seen impressive gains in stock values in Q2 2023 include Meta (33.8 per cent), Oracle (28.9 per cent), and Amazon (26.4 per cent). They recorded overall gains of 130 per cent, 45 per cent and 56.1 per cent, respectively, since the beginning of 2023.

The prediction of a global recession and the Federal Reserve (Fed) interest-rate induced spending squeeze saw tech stocks experiencing a tipsy-topsy journey during most part of H1 2023.

However, it did not deter the top companies gain record valuation.

Meta has gained the approval of investors, after the company's efficiency initiatives showed positive impact on the latest quarter results, with other factors being improved monetisation from reels content and enhanced ad targeting.

At the other extreme, Tencent, Qualcomm and Cisco witnessed their market value eroding during Q2 2023, said the report.

Tencent, which saw its market value recovering in Q1 2023, slipped back to Q4 2022 level by the end of Q2 2023, impacted by a slowdown in Chinese economy, heavy sell-off by Prosus, one of its major stakeholders, and fear among investor community about potential sanctions that restrict exporting of select chips into China.

Weak demand for smartphones and tablets impacted Qualcomm's top-line performance in recent quarters, impacting its market value.

“Looking ahead, tech companies offering hardware and software solutions for AI tools and cloud-based solutions are likely to witness market rally for their stocks,” said Benher.