Nvidia Could Be About To Do Something No Company Has Ever Done
The chipmaker's shares closed at an all-time high Thursday, bringing its market value closer to Apple's record of $3.91 trillion set in December.
Wedbush analysts said they believe Nvidia and Microsoft could breach the $4 trillion threshold this summer, something no company has done yet.Nvidia (NVDA) could be poised to claim the title of most valuable company in history, as its market value nears $4 trillion.
The AI chipmaker's shares rose just over 1% to close at an all-time high of $159.34 Thursday, pushing its market capitalization to $3.89 trillion. If the stock had sustained its intraday highs closer to $161, its market value would have topped Apple's (AAPL) closing record of $3.91 trillion in December.
With another roughly 3% rise from Thursday's closing price to $163.93, Nvidia could also hit the $4 trillion market cap threshold soon, something no other company has done. Microsoft (MSFT), which has jockeyed with Nvidia this year for the title of world's most valuable company, could too, according to Wedbush analysts led by Dan Ives.
'We believe both Nvidia and Microsoft will hit the $4 trillion market cap club this summer and then over the next 18 months the focus will be on the $5 trillion club....as this tech bull market is still early being led by the AI Revolution," the analysts said in a note to clients Thursday.
Thursday's rise came amid broader market gains, with the benchmark S&P 500 index and tech-heavy Nasdaq hitting all-time highs ahead of a long holiday weekend. The stock market closed early at 1 p.m. ET Thursday ahead of the July 4 holiday on Friday.
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As Trump pushes Apple to make iPhones in the U.S., Google's brief effort building smartphones in Texas 12 years ago offers critical lessons
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And the company behind the bet was Google, which had acquired legacy phone maker Motorola Mobility and was leveraging its modern tech prowess and vast resources to make the Moto X smartphone a success. Just a year later, it was all over. Google sold the Motorola phone business and pulled the plug on the U.S. manufacturing effort. It was the last time a major company tried to produce a U.S. made smartphone. The story of Google's short-lived on-shorting experiment has been largely forgotten, a footnote in the internet search giant's nearly three-decade history of business initiatives and projects. But Google's experience, particularly where it succeeded, where it discovered unexpected benefits, and where it stumbled, are newly relevant amid President Trump's campaign to pressure Apple, and other tech companies, to build their gadgets on U.S. soil. 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And the customization was well-suited to the on-shoring plan: By making phones in the U.S., Motorola would be able to deliver them to domestic customers within four days, instead of making them wait, while also saving on shipping costs. In its marketing, Motorola played up the device's pedigree as a patriotic alternative to the foreign-produced competition. The plant's opening celebration was such a big deal that then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry and billionaire Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban showed up. The factory in Fort Worth, about an hour's drive from Dallas, was operated by Flextronics, a contract manufacturer now known as Flex. To save on costs, workers at the plant handled only final assembly, using components that were imported from Asia. The cost of labor was of course higher than in China – workers were paid an hourly wage that was about three times more than in China, company executives said at the time. But it was an acceptable trade-off, given the other advantages. 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The operation was in a former Nokia phone factory, in an industrial park designated as a foreign trade zone and with its own airport for cargo. The location meant that Motorola would pay lower tariffs on certain components it imported from Asia. The savings would only kick in, however, if the company decided to export some of the phones it produced there to other countries. Randall, who is now a supply chain consultant and startup board member, described Texas as a friendly home for manufacturing. In just one example of the warm welcome, the state gave Motorola a tax break for worker training, he said. Setting up the Moto X plant required installing a massive amount of equipment, including conveyor belts and other machinery. Some, like certain testing machines, were shipped from China. Workers wearing smocks and gloves to protect the electronics from dirt and lint stood at blue tables set in neat rows while they went through the many steps required to finish a phone. Computer screens glowed above each station. Fitting plastic parts, like the phone's back cover, tended to be done by hand. Robotics was used for adding components like touch screens and for testing certain parts during assembly to make sure they worked properly. As production ramped up, process engineers, who sometimes patrolled the assembly line with stopwatches, looked for bottlenecks and rejiggered the assembly line. Like with any plant, the effort to squeeze out more efficiency was a constant focus. As the first Motorola phone designed under Google, Moto X generated considerable buzz. The Android device, which was priced at $579 for the unlocked entry version, had a rounded backside and pioneering voice control feature. Users merely had to say 'Okay, Google now' to activate the feature, to set up reminders and get driving directions 'It was a cool sexy phone,' said Mills, the CIO. 'I got it for my kids.' The mobile network carriers were also excited by the Moto X, though at least partly for self-serving reasons, according to Randall, the supply chain guru. If the device sold well, it would provide the carriers more leverage over Apple in negotiating the wholesale prices they paid for future iPhones. But ultimately, critics gave the Moto X mixed reviews. While they praised the ability to customize the device and its overall design, they dinged it for having underwhelming storage in the basic model (16GB) and inferior screen quality compared to the competition. As the Fort Worth plant revved up, workers quickly started pumping out up to 100,000 phones weekly. Initially, the plant's staff was overwhelmed, forcing Motorola to briefly backtrack on its promise to deliver phones to customers within four days. But over time, the volume dipped considerably. In the first quarter of 2014, Motorola sold 900,000 Moto X handsets worldwide compared to Apple selling 26 million of its new iPhone 5s during the same period, according to Strategy Analytics. Five months after Moto X debuted, Motorola slashed its price to $399. After nine months, the factory was down to 700 workers, or less than one-fifth of what it had earlier. Within the first few weeks, Randall said it was clear to leadership that the Moto X was underperforming. The team had to ramp down production. While not a complete failure in terms of sales, the phone wasn't a huge success either. Employees said they expected future models to do better, after improving the phone's design. Many blamed a limited marketing budget compared to the big money that Samsung and Apple spent on print ads and TV commercials. Because Moto X was a brand new model, they argued it needed a splashier ad campaign to get the word out or a more convincing message. One of the company's big assumptions about the phone had turned out to be wrong. After betting big on U.S. assembly, and waving the red, white, and blue in its marketing, the company realized that most consumers didn't care where the phone was made. 'One of the learnings was that assembled in America wasn't resonating,' said Mark Rose, a senior director of product management with Motorola at the time who now coaches product managers as a consultant. Apple wouldn't necessarily face the same challenges as Motorola, if it opened a U.S. smartphone plant. Their vast difference in size could make a big difference. Because of sluggish demand, Motorola struggled to achieve the cost savings from making Moto X in huge numbers. Apple, on the other hand, with annual U.S. iPhone sales in the tens of millions, could more easily cash in on the economies of scale. For Motorola, the challenge it faced was compounded by its decision to let shoppers customize their phones when ordering them online. Fully assembling those devices ahead of time, which would have helped make the plant run more smoothly, was impossible. It also led to higher return rates, an expensive problem for any company, because customers were more likely to be disappointed with the color scheme they chose. Apple, with its standardized lineup, doesn't have the same worries. Thanks to its successful track record, Apple also has significant control and leverage over its suppliers to negotiate lower prices for its iPhone components. Motorola, with its back-in-the-pack position and the uncertainty about whether its new Moto X phone would be a hit, had little sway in comparison. Meanwhile, Motorola, along with most other Android phone makers, operate in an environment of intense competition that translates into low profit margins. Any extra costs, such as is the case with U.S. manufacturing from higher wages, can be financially painful. Apple's iPhone, however, is a premium product that sells at a high margin. As a result, the company could more easily absorb the additional expense of producing it in the U.S. Ultimately, Google's changing priorities played a major role in its decision in January 2014 to sell Motorola to China-based Lenovo for $2.9 billion. A few months later, with the sale of the phone maker still pending, Google announced it would shut down its Moto X assembly line in Fort Worth and shift production entirely to China and Brazil, where production costs were lower. Instead of trying to compete with Apple, Motorola, under Lenovo, would focus on making cheaper phones aimed at customers in developing countries. 'What we found was that the North American market was exceptionally tough,' Motorola president Rick Osterloh told the Wall Street Journal after announcing that the Fort Worth plant would close. Selling would eliminate another problem for Google: Griping by phone makers that used Android software in their devices. They complained that Google, after buying Motorola, competed directly against them. Google had to take the rebellion seriously. If those partners bailed on Android, it would be a huge blow to Google because it would make it more difficult for handset users to access its services. Another factor in the sale was Google's rationale for acquiring Motorola in the first place. In addition to buying a phone business, Google had gotten Motorola's huge patent portfolio that it hoped would help it fend off a growing number of lawsuits over Android. Apple, Microsoft, and other competitors had targeted Google and its phone making partners with claims that the operating system infringed on their intellectual property. In selling Motorola to Lenovo, Google kept most of the patents, tacitly acknowledging that they were more valuable to it than a handset business with disappointing sales. 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Adding thousands of workers on short notice to speed up production of a device getting more sales than anticipated would be next to impossible to do in the U.S. In China, it's routine. 'If there was a ramp that went super well, the ability to flex that workforce is insane' Randall said about China. 'The ability to scale down that work workforce is insane.' Also, there are relatively few U.S.-based suppliers that could produce enough electronic components for millions of phones. And expanding the pool would likely take years. Meanwhile, importing parts, the obvious alternative, may be prohibitively expensive if Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, proposed in April, fully kick in. It doesn't help that the president frequently changes his mind about the levies, making it difficult for companies to plan ahead for big investments like phone assembly plants. Mills, the former Motorola CIO, said Trump giving phone makers like Apple some wiggle room would make it easier for them to set up U.S. manufacturing. Instead of producing their phones entirely in the U.S, they could avoid tariffs by doing merely final assembly domestically, like Motorola tried. 'A big thing comes down to what Trump means by Made in America,' said Mills. Another idea is for Apple to set up a small operation domestically to produce a 'prestige or limited edition' iPhone, said Ross Rubin, an analyst with Reticle Research. It could charge a premium for the device, say $2,000, he said, and let Trump declare victory, letting Apple avoid the much more expensive alternative to onshoring a huge chunk of its iPhone production. What is clear is this: Motorola's Made in America experiment lasted just over a year, and in more than a decade since, no other major smartphone maker has dared to try something similar again. This story was originally featured on
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