Tencent Beats Alibaba In The $500 Billion Valuation Race

While Americans watch Apple Inc. AAPL, Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL and Microsoft Corporation MSFT to see which company will become the nation’s first $1 trillion public company, Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY has won the race to become China’s first $500 billion company.

This week, Tencent edged out Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA to make it to $500 billion in market capitalization. 

Tencent owns China’s most popular messaging app, WeChat. Popular American apps including Facebook Inc FB, Twitter Inc TWTR, Snap Inc SNAP’s Snapchat and Instagram are all banned in China by the government.

Tencent stock has surged 10.7 percent in the past five trading sessions, putting the company’s market cap at $534.5 billion, above Facebook's $519.4 billion and within the reach of Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN's $542.7 billion.

Microsoft ($642 billion), Alphabet ($722 billion) and Apple ($877 billion) still have large leads over Tencent, but those gaps are closing quickly.

Following the most recent move, Tencet’s stock is up 124.4 percent year-to-date. Alibaba shares are up 116.6 percent on the year.

Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet have all generated gains between 31 and 48 percent this year — impressive compared to the overall U.S. market. The two Chinese giants Tencent and Alibaba are coming on strong, both doubling their market caps this year.

Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) RDS RDS is the next largest U.S.-listed international company in the world behind Alibaba and Tencent, with a market cap of $256 billion, according to Finviz. 

Disclosure: the author is long BABA and RDS.B.

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