Amazon is now a bigger company than Microsoft

Recent gains in its share price have propelled the online behemoth to third place in the U.S. economy with respect to market valuation, edging ahead of the Redmond giant by a small margin.

After Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently stole the distinction of being the richest man on the planet from Bill Gates; the same is now true of the companies that the two tech legends founded. Amazon.com Inc. is now the third-largest in the world by market valuation, taking the title formerly belonging to Microsoft Corp.

Following the reveal of spectacular Q4 2017 results earlier this month, the company's share price has been on an overall upward trend and rose by 2.57% this Wednesday to reach $1,451. That put the online retail giant's market valuation at $702.46 billion, trailing behind Apple ($849.24 billion) and Alphabet ($744.73 billion), respectively.

While Microsoft's share prices too made some gains and climbed 1.6%, the Redmond giant simply could not keep up with Amazon, ending the day with a share price of $90.81 and a resulting valuation of $699.22 billion.

Over the last year, the two companies have made impressive strides and exhibited massive increases in share price. Microsoft, indeed, reached a historic high at the end of last month but was unable to match the gains by Amazon's shares, which rose by 72% compared to Microsoft's 41%.

Some analysts estimate the company is expected to keep rising in the ranks and, if this trend continues, Amazon could even overshadow Google parent Alphabet to become the second-most valuable company in the world.

Source: Business Insider, CNBC