Saudi Aramco surpassed the American company Apple to become the most valuable company in the world, following its share recorded 46.10 riyals during today’s trading in the Saudi stock market.
The American technology company lost more than $200 billion of its market value in three days, falling to $2.461 trillion, while the shares of the world’s largest energy company gained to surpass it to $2.464 trillion.
According to Bloomberg, the market value of “Apple” reached its peak on January 4 at $2.960 trillion, but it has remained on a downward path since then, losing nearly $484 billion, while high oil prices supported Aramco’s prospects.
Aramco is scheduled to announce its financial results for the first quarter of 2022 next Sunday, in light of expectations of achieving strong profits, taking advantage of the strong oil price gains since the beginning of this year, which increased its pace since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The profits of the Saudi company rose for the year 2021 to the highest level since its listing on the Saudi stock market, due to the rise in oil prices, the consolidation of SABIC’s business results for a full year, in addition to a significant increase in the profit margins of the refining and chemicals business.
Net profit amounted to 412.4 billion riyals last year, a growth of 124.4% compared to 2020. Aramco announced the distribution of cash dividends to shareholders of 70.33 billion riyals for the fourth quarter of 2021, in addition to a recommendation by the Board of Directors to capitalize 15 billion riyals of the remaining profits and grant each 10 free shares.