This would all be great except for one small detail in the article:
Apple is NOT the most valuable company in the world. It's on second place.
The worlds most valuable firm is Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Aramco has proven reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil. That is a fifth of all the oil in the world. And lets not forget the 283 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves (the fourth largest in the world).
It employs 56,066 people and comes with its own fleet of supertankers and network of refineries.
The industry journal Petroleum Intelligence Weekly ranks energy firms by asset size, and places Saudi Aramco as the world #1, ahead of the National Iranian Oil Co at #2, and ExxonMobile at #3. The Russian behemoth Gazprom scrapes in at #10.
Valuing a firm like this isnt easy.
Looking at the oil market, BP, ranked #6 by PIW, is valued at £85bn at a p/e of 7.87. It has proven reserves of 17.75 billion barrels of oil.
Applying the same metrics to Saudi Aramco gives a value of $1.245 trillion for Saudi Aramco, or almost double the value of Apple.