Thanks to a robust FB stock rally Monday, Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) bumped Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) out of the 10 companies by market cap.
Shares of the social media giant jumped $2.23, or 2.27%, to finish Monday's session at $84.74. That gave FB a market cap of around $236 billion. WMT shares, meanwhile, slipped 0.01% to $72.78. That marked a 20-month low and left WMT with a market cap of around $234 billion.
According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, Wal-Mart hasn't finished a year outside the top S&P 500 companies by market cap since 1997. Eighteen years ago, Wal-Mart became a part of the elite club by knocking out tech titan International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), which at the time sported a market cap of $102 billion.
Facebook's latest feat is indeed impressive. WMT is an iconic American company and gigantic global brand. It's also a behemoth by size and revenue.
For its fiscal year ended Jan. 31, WMT booked sales of $482.2 billion. Last year, Wal-Mart ranked first on the 2014 Fortune 500 list of the world's largest companies by revenue. Founded in 1945, WMT has more than 11,400 retail units peppered across 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 11 countries. Employing 2.2 million associates globally, 1.3 million in the United States, WMT is one of the largest private employers in North America.
In comparison, FB is still a young company.
Founded in 2004, FB debuted as a public company on May 18, 2012. It was one of the biggest IPOs in technology and Internet history. At the time, FB boasted a market cap of more than $104 billion. However, shares tumbled as soon as the stock opened. Over the next several months, FB's stock price swooned more than 50%.
Three years later, Facebook is not simply the world's largest social networking site. FB is also a leader in tech, mobile, advertising, and virtual reality.
Facebook has a monthly active user base of 1.44 billion. It has also amassed 1.25 billion monthly active mobile users. In Q1 2015, FB recorded $3.54 billion in revenue. Mobile advertising revenue represented roughly 73% of its ad revenue, up from 59% year over year.
For FY2015, Facebook's share of the global mobile ad market is estimated at 30%, according to eMarketer.
What's Next for Facebook (Nasdaq: FB)
Tuesday, at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, FB unveiled this new mobile format that is still in the testing stage...
The new format aims to give advertisers the ability to create engaging media that seamlessly blends with the videos in users' news feeds. The new format merges video with information and still and moving images.
Users will be able to use their fingers to zoom in, zoom out, and turn images around. The goal is to make ads uniquely interactive.
The new format is an extension of two big trends driving Facebook's growth: mobile and video.
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FB is also always working on new initiates and acquiring new businesses to keep users on its site longer and coming back more often. Virtual headset business Oculus was added to the FB family in 2014. Oculus joined units including messaging services Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as the widely popular photo-sharing app Instagram.
Monday, Piper Jaffray boosted its price target on Facebook stock to $120 from $92. The firm also reiterated its "Overweight" rating. The firm said Facebook is the best play on the "next computer paradigm of virtual reality." Piper analysts said FB's virtual reality technology Oculus is an insurance policy on the relevance of its social portfolio as technology shifts.
Facebook shares hit a new all-time high of $87.97 intraday Tuesday.
Here's a list of the top 15 companies by market cap:
Companies with Largest Market Cap – Top 15
| Ticker | Company | Market Cap ($Bil) |
| AAPL | Apple Inc. | 743.3 |
| GOOGL | Google Inc. | 380.9 |
| MSFT | Microsoft Corp. | 375.1 |
| XOM | Exxon Mobil Corp. | 356.1 |
| BRK.B | Berkshire Hathaway Inc. | 348.8 |
| WFC | Wells Fargo & Co. | 298.2 |
| JNJ | Johnson & Johnson | 277.6 |
| GE | General Electric Co. | 275.1 |
| JPM | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 255.9 |
| FB | Facebook Inc. | 236.2 |
| WMT | Wal-Mart Stores Inc. | 234.6 |
| PG | Procter & Gamble Co. | 217.2 |
| PFE | Pfizer Inc. | 211.3 |
| AMZN | Amazon.com Inc. | 202.6 |
| VZ | Verizon Communications Inc. | 193.8 |
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