Bloomberg reports that Apple’s market value stands at $586 billion, which is nearly the same as the total market value of every single public company in Spain, Greece, and Portugal combined.  This comparison illustrates not simply Apple’s rapid growth, but also the serious consequences of Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.  In November 2007, the value of these three nations’ public companies stood at 11 times that of Apple’s, but this peak vanished rapidly.  The debt crisis wiped $1 trillion off the total value of the nearly 500 publicly traded companies in Spain, Greece, and Portugal – a 62% plunge. 

This report comes on the heels of a recent article in The Atlantic highlighting Eurostat data on unemployment in Europe.  The data shows that Spain, Greece, and Portugal possess the unemployment rates of 23.6%, 21.0%, and 15.0% respectively, the three highest in Europe.