Will Apple Inc (AAPL)’s Phenomenon Continue To Grow?

With a market cap of approximately $5.6 billion, it is the smallest of any of these companies. Microsoft, Apple, and Staples market caps are roughly $324 billion, $436 billion, and $8.7 billion respectively. Although Best Buy’s stock has started to recover recently, it is still down almost 35% for the year. Best Buy is a company that markets a lot of Apple’s products, so maybe they will start to recover more as Apple grows in popularity. In 2012, Best Buy’s EPS fell from $3.08 to -$3.36, a whopping $6.44 difference. With very minimal decreases in 2009 and 2011, 2012 became only the third time this decade when EPS fell.

In the chart below, you can see how each of these companies’stocks have fallen in the past year.

MSFT data by YCharts

The Foolish Conclusion…

Even with the stocks being down, I wouldn’t count them all out. Staples is yet to experience the Apple phenomenon in America, and I don’t see slowing down any time soon. Microsoft has the potential for an estimated $2.5 billion annual increase if a deal is reached with Apple. Even with Apple’s “mid-year” crisis, I believe the company is under bought and has the potential to sky rocket in the near future. I wouldn’t count Best Buy out just yet, but these other companies might be better buys.

The article Will Apple’s Phenomenon Continue To Grow? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Tyler Wofford.

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