Enterprise

Microsoft beats Apple as the world’s most valuable company

Just for a brief moment

Published

November 27, 2018

Daniel Morial

When Apple became a trillion-dollar company about four months ago, it was a momentous triumph for the company. Although, their market value slowly went down after the excitement over the new iPhones. On the other hand, Microsoft is slowly crawling up to the top and was able to overtake Apple in market cap value for the first time in eight years.

Microsoft briefly reached US$ 812.93 billion earlier today and it was closely followed by Apple with US$ 812.60 billion. Even for just a brief time, the Redmond company became the most valuable entity in the world. Traders are still making Apple and Microsoft battle for the title as we speak.

It was in 2010 when Apple passed Microsoft due to the massive sales and popularity of the iPhones and MacBooks. Apple’s stock grew phenomenally over the years and it peaked with a US$ 1 trillion valuation.

Yet, investors started to express concern about current iPhone sales which make up about 60 percent of the company’s revenue. The Cupertino company doesn’t expect to hit market estimates for the holidays which is why stock prices are going down. There are now reports that Apple has resumed the production of an older iPhone model due to the weak sales of the latest one.

Microsoft’s current company logo | Image credit: Microsoft

To add to the list of concerns, Apple doesn’t even want to disclose how many iPhones, iPads, and Macs it sells. This make will it harder for analysts to foresee the future of the company’s revenue and, of course, increases the risks for investors.

Things are a bit different for Microsoft which is performing pretty good since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014. Unlike Apple, Microsoft has a number of revenue sources including popular services and products like Windows, Office, Xbox, and Surface. What makes most of Microsoft money though is their focus on cross-platform technologies, the cloud, and artificial intelligence.

Who could forget the failure of Windows Phone? Still, the company showed resilience and was able to keep itself on the right path. Microsoft passed Google’s and Amazon’s market value, so the leap over Apple’s is just another indication of the company’s bright future.

Until when can Microsoft hold the torch? Nobody can say for sure, but it’ll be an exciting tomorrow for the company and for all the tech giants who are constantly competing.

Source: Bloomberg

Enterprise

Sony teams up with 13 companies for sustainable global supply chain

Sustainability through introduction of renewable plastics

Published

February 9, 2026

GadgetMatch

Sony, along with several companies, have established the world’s first global supply chain for the production of renewable plastics that can be used in Sony’s high-performance audiovisual products.

The supply chain consists of 14 companies across five countries and regions. The various plastic materials manufacture through this supply are slated for use in Sony’s products that will launch worldwide.

High-performance products such as audiovisual equipment involve a wide variety of plastics. The result is a complex supply chain that makes it difficult to visualize and manage the entire flow.

Additionally, plastic components that require high performance in terms of flame resistance and optical properties cannot be fully replaced with plastics from material recycling.

To address these challenges, these 14 companies have collaborated to visualize the existing supply chain for Sony’s products:

Sony Corporation
Mitsubishi Corporation
ADEKA CORPORATION
CHIMEI Corporation
ENEOS Corporation
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation
Hanwha Impact Corporation
Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Neste Corporation
Qingdao Haier New Material Development Co.
Ltd., SK Geo Centric Co., Ltd.
Toray Industries, Inc.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc.

Sustainability through renewable plastics

The new supply chain created will enable the production of multiple types of renewable plastics from biomass resources with a mass balance approach.

This allows Sony to proactively source raw materials for its products with quality, as well as properties equivalent to virgin fossil-based plastics.

Defining the supply chain also helps the companies track and document GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions data in a verifiable way.

This allows participating companies to leverage the data to advance efforts to reduce their carbon footprint going forward.

Sony’s initiative with a wide range of global partners is part of the “Creating NEW from reNEWable materials” jointly launched by the electronics giant and Mitsubishi.

It aims to achieve zero usage of virgin fossil-based plastics through the introduction of renewable plastics.

Enterprise

realme is reportedly going back to being an OPPO sub-brand

All scheduled phones will still launch on time, though.

Published

January 9, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

A popular story among Chinese smartphone brands is whenever a sub-brand spinning off into its own independent entity. A less common one is when an independent entity suddenly merges back into the main entity. And yet, that’s the story we have today. realme is reportedly going back to being a sub-brand of OPPO.

If you don’t remember realme’s time as a sub-brand, then it’s hardly your fault. It’s been a long while since realme was considered a sub-brand. In 2018, the brand spun off on its own to form one of the most popular names in the Chinese smartphone space.

Today, via Leiphone, realme will return to OPPO as a sub-brand. Current realme CEO Sky Li will still retain his responsibilities heading the brand. Plus, all products on the current release schedule will still come out as planned.

However, starting this year, realme will start reintegrating back into OPPO, particularly through the latter’s after-sales programs. OnePlus will also follow the same structure going forward.

Currently, realme has not officially announced the move. That said, we also don’t know how the brand will address the reported change. It’s possible that the shift is just internal and has no effect on how the brand faces the public. For now, only time will tell.

Enterprise

Samsung warns that tech prices might increase this year

And it’s all because of AI.

Published

January 8, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

The big story late last year was the skyrocketing prices of chips. Analysts are predicting that the demand for RAM will cause the entire industry to experience hikes this year. Some users, especially in the PC building scene, are already feeling the burn. PCs won’t be the only victims, though. Xiaomi is already expecting hikes across the board. Now, Samsung is adding its voice to the growing list of warnings about price increases.

During CES 2026, Wonjiun Lee, Samsung’s global marketing chief, confirmed that the memory shortages are, in fact, real (via Bloomberg). Moreover, the company is now evaluating whether more price hikes are needed this year for its products. Though Lee expressed regret over pushing the prices to consumers, the state of the industry might force the company’s hand.

Samsung’s opinion has a lot of weight. While other brands have also voiced out their opinions lately, Samsung itself is a producer of chips. If a chip supplier is already warning users of prices affecting them, the effect will likely cascade even more when it comes to device manufacturers.

The ongoing shortage of chips is a result of the overwhelming demand from companies looking to build and bolster AI-based servers. The business-to-business demand is notably different from how regular consumers, who will soon find it hard to buy their own devices, see it.

At the very least, Samsung has not confirmed any price increases yet. However, all eyes are on the next Galaxy Unpacked, when Samsung will launch its newest Galaxy products. Will prices increase or stay the same?