Chipmaker Nvidia Corp has become the world’s fourth largest company by market capitalisation, after a 16.4 per cent surge on Thursday (Feb 22) when a quarterly earnings report surpassed analysts’ expectations.
The company’s market cap has swelled by US$740.2 billion this year, the largest increase worldwide.
It makes Nvidia the third-largest company in the United States, outranking tech giants Amazon and Alphabet and behind only Microsoft Corp and Apple.
Globally, it is the fourth-largest, positioned behind Saudi Aramco.
As of Thursday, the company’s market cap stood at US$1.96 trillion, compared with US$1.52 trillion at the end of January.
Nvidia shares’ 58.5 per cent jump in 2024 has been pivotal in the S&P 500’s performance, contributing to more than a quarter of the index’s rise this year. Analysts are monitoring whether the chipmaker will drive further gains.
The S&P 500 index achieved a record high on Thursday, reflecting a 6.65 per cent increase this year, following a 24 per cent surge in 2023, primarily driven by a robust rally in the technology sector.
“Leading cloud computing companies plan to boost their capital expenditures to satisfy demand for artificial intelligence training and inference, and it appears that virtually all this spending will fall into Nvidia’s pockets,” said Brian Colello, a strategist at Morningstar.
“We anticipate revenue will rise by a couple of billion each quarter throughout fiscal 2025 for Nvidia as more chip supply comes online.”
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