When considering economic scale, China is currently the country closest to the United States in terms of GDP. In 2022, China's GDP reached 70% of that of the United States. Even though China's GDP fell to 64% of the U.S. in the first quarter of this year, China remains the most hopeful economy to surpass the United States in the coming decades.

However, there is still a significant gap in the areas of financial capital and high technology.

Looking at the stock market, Apple, the company with the highest market value in the United States, had a market value of $2.98 trillion as of June 30th, just a step away from the $3 trillion mark.

In addition, Microsoft's latest market value is $2.49 trillion, Amazon's market value is $1.31 trillion, Google's market value is $1.52 trillion, Nvidia's market value is $1.01 trillion, and Tesla's market value is $0.81 trillion. The total market value of these six technology companies is as high as $10.12 trillion, equivalent to 73.43 trillion yuan.

It is important to note that the total market value of China's A-shares is about 90 trillion yuan, and the market value of the six U.S. technology companies has exceeded 70 trillion yuan. Moreover, the U.S. stock market has been continuously driven by technology stocks over the years. These six U.S. technology giants have achieved the number one position in their respective fields. It can be seen that the gap in the technology field is even greater.

Advertisement

If we take out Apple's market value alone, it is also enough to be "rich enough to rival a country"!

The market value of $2.98 trillion, equivalent to 21.64 trillion yuan, has already exceeded the GDP of France and Russia, and can be called the largest company in the world. The market value of a company is higher than the total economic output of a country. Although this comparison is not objective, it also shows the horror of Apple's market value.

Since the beginning of the year, Apple's stock price has soared by 50%, and the market value is about to break through $3 trillion. It was thought that this was the peak of Apple, but Citibank believes that Apple's stock price can still rise by 30%.

On the one hand, Apple's gross profit margin still has room for growth. In fact, Apple's gross profit margin is already very high. If it can be higher, it is simply against the sky; on the other hand, the Chinese and Indian markets will provide higher profit sources for Apple, supporting a higher market value.

At present, Apple's share in the Chinese market is still very high, and the Chinese market contributes about 20% of Apple's sales.Take a look at the mobile phone sales during this year's 618 period, and you can see how crazy Apple is in the Chinese market! According to official statistics, the mobile phone sales volume during the 618 period this year reached 13.4 million units, among which Apple's sales volume was as high as 5.62 million units, firmly holding the first place in mobile phone sales volume, accounting for more than 40% of the market share.

Without Huawei's strong position, Apple almost has no competitors in the Chinese market. According to the data released by research institutions for the first quarter of 2023, Apple's market share in the Chinese market is close to 20%, ranking first in the country, with OPPO ranking second, vivo third, Honor fourth, Xiaomi fifth, and Huawei falling to sixth.

According to the financial report released by Apple Inc., in the past fiscal year of 2022, Apple Inc.'s net profit reached $99.8 billion, equivalent to 720 billion yuan, which is almost more than twice the profit of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In the technology industry, there is currently no domestic company that can compare with Apple's profit.

Tencent's profit last year was 188.2 billion yuan, Alibaba's profit was 136.3 billion yuan, and Huawei's profit was 35.6 billion yuan, just reaching half of Apple's profit. Therefore, strong profitability is the internal driving force supporting the continuous increase in Apple's market value.

So, in the field of technology, we still have a long way to go. Although a group of technology companies such as Huawei and DJI have gone global, many fields still need more "Huaweis" to persist in more scientific research investment and talent training.

At present, we are not short of money or market, but we lack top talents and technological accumulation. Of course, we also need a stable environment to support long-term scientific research investment. From the perspective of talents, we need to consider how to cultivate excellent industry talents and how to retain excellent talents.

I believe that China's future technological development will usher in more breakthrough progress and truly become a technological powerhouse one day.