10 Most Valuable Internet Companies in 2000 vs. Today

Published on October 8, 2022 at 9:20 pm by Insider Monkey Team in Hedge Funds, Lists, News

In this article, we will take a look at 10 of the most valuable internet companies today versus in 2000. If you want to see some more of the most valuable internet companies today versus 2000, go directly to 5 Most Valuable Internet Companies in 2000 vs. Today.

The 10 most valuable internet companies have changed a lot since 22 years ago.

Back in 2000, the internet was much smaller than what it is today. Globally, there were only around 413 million internet users.

It was also much slower with many people using dialup.

In 2000, most people also accessed the internet through either a PC or laptop. Popular apps like Facebook did not exist. The iPhone was not invented either. Cloud computing was mainly just a theory rather than reality.

80% of people used Internet Explorer and Google Chrome did not exist.

The 5 most popular sites back in 2000 included Yahoo.com, AOL.com, Geocities.com, MSN.com, and Lycos.com.

Today, the internet is much larger with several billion more users.

The internet is also much faster for many given 5G.

Due to mobile phones, internet companies also do a lot more than just internet now. With the internet, people can work at home. They can do shopping, or they can watch TV or even movies.

In terms of the 5 most popular sites, Yahoo.com and MSN.com still have a lot of users and the other sites have not done very well.

The demographics of the people who use the internet have also changed. While many people in China weren’t online in 2000, hundreds of millions of Chinese are online today. As a result of the demographic change, some of the world’s most valuable internet companies are Chinese while none were Chinese in 2000.

As a result of the huge growth of the internet as well as inflation, the 10 most valuable internet companies today are collectively worth a lot more than what they were collectively worth in 2000.

The 10th most valuable company today is worth over $80 billion, for example, versus around $2.1 billion in 2000. Meanwhile the most valuable company today is worth almost $1.3 trillion versus $94.2 billion in 2000.

The composition of the most valuable companies in 2000 versus today has also changed substantially. Aside from Amazon, every other company in the top 10 in 2000 isn’t in the top 10 today. Some of the top internet companies back in 2000 did not do very well in terms of their stock performance also.

The change illustrates how quickly the internet has evolved over time and how successful Amazon has really been in terms of growing its businesses.

In terms of the future, it is very likely that the internet will continue to evolve with potentially several new top ten companies. Companies in India, which has a population that will be bigger than China soon, could also potentially make it into the top ten sometime in the future.

The internet could also be more about virtual reality or augmented reality in the future. As a result, some companies that offer entirely new services that don’t even exist today could also be in the top 10.

If existing internet companies are well run, their values could continue to increase. Companies like Amazon.com that were in the top 10 in 2000 and 2022 could still potentially be in the top 10 in 2042 if it continues to grow quickly and innovate.

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Methodology

For the market caps of internet companies today, we took the top 20 internet companies from Statista as of June 2022 and we reranked them based on the market caps as of October 7. Of that list, we took the 10 most valuable. Given that some of the most valuable internet companies in the world today are private companies, we used estimates on their value today.

For the market caps of internet companies in 2000, we used data from Statistics & Data.

10 Most Valuable Internet Companies in 2000 vs. Today

#10 JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD)

Market Capitalization as of October 7: $80.68 billion

JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) is a leading Chinese e-commerce company with 580.8 million annual active customer accounts as of Q2 2022. Given its market capitalization of $80.68 billion as of October 7, JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) is the 10th most valuable internet company. Given the slowdown in the Chinese economy and delisting risk, JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) is down 27% year to date.

Of the 895 hedge funds in our database, 62 were long JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) at the end of the second quarter. Among them, Hillhouse Capital Management owns almost 8.5 million shares of JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) as of Q2 2022.

Back in 2000, Ivillage, which operated popular female orientated sites, was the 10th most valuable internet company with a market capitalization of $2.1 billion.

Alongside Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), JD.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD) is one of the most valuable internet companies today.

#9 Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)

Market Capitalization as of October 7: $101.76 billion

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) is a subscription streaming service and production company. As of the second quarter of 2022, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) had over 220 million paid subscribers globally. Although its growth has slowed substantially due to competition as well as market saturation, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) is also working on developing games which could offer the company more growth opportunities.

After being subscription only for many years, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) is also entering into the streaming with ads market to hopefully reverse subscriber losses.

With a market capitalization of $101.76 billion, Netflix is the 9th most valuable internet company.

95 hedge funds that we track were long Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) at the end of Q2 2022.

In 2000, the 9th most valuable internet company was Look Smart with a valuation of $3.6 billion. Look Smart was an American search advertising, content management and online media company.

#8 Paypal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)

Market Capitalization as of October 7: $107.47 billion

Paypal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is a leading online payments company with 429 million active accounts in over 200 markets. Given its huge userbase that use its platform every day, Paypal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)’s small fee for transactions make it very profitable.

With a market capitalization of $107.47 billion as of October 7, Paypal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is also the eighth most valuable internet company in the world. 97 hedge funds in our database were long Paypal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) at the end of Q2 2022 with Fisher Asset Management was one of the top holders.

Back in 2000, the eighth most valuable internet company was the web portal Excite with a market valuation of $6.3 billion.

#7 Meituan

Market Capitalization as of October 7: $136.31 billion

Meituan is a leading Chinese shopping platform that offers food delivery. With 684.7 million annual transacting users and also 9.2 million annual active merchants as of June 30, 2022, Meituan is one of China’s biggest internet companies. With a market capitalization of $136.31 billion as of October 7, Meituan is also the seventh most valuable internet company today.

Back in 2000, the seventh most valuable company was Priceline with a valuation of $7.6 billion. Priceline, which allowed customers to name their own price for flights and hotels, has since become Booking Holdings Inc.

#6 Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA)

Market Capitalization as of October 7: $212.58 billion

Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is a leading Chinese e-commerce and cloud company. Given its market share of e-commerce and the cloud in China, Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) is the sixth most valuable internet company in the world with a market capitalization of $212.58 billion as of October 7. Although it is profitable, the market has valued Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) lower due to delisting risk as well as a slowing Chinese economy. 106 hedge funds in our database were long Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) at the end of Q2 2022.

Back in 2000, Interactivecorp was the sixth most valuable internet company with a market cap of $8.8 billion. Interactivecorp is an internet holding company with various internet properties.

Like Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) are among the world’s most valuable internet companies today.

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