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Apple has overtaken arch rival Microsoft to become the world’s biggest technology company by stock market valuation.Changes in the share price values of the two companies in this week’s fluctuating trading conditions left the total value of Apple at £154 billion. Microsoft is now valued by investors at £151 billion.

However, Microsoft still enjoys far higher profits than Apple. Its most recent annual net profit was £10 billion, compared with £3.9 billion for Apple.

Microsoft also reported bigger annual revenues of £40.3 billion compared with Apple’s £25.2 billion.

Apple’s shares closed Wednesday trading down 0.4%, while Microsoft fell by 4%.

The big popularity of the iPhone, which has become a big seller since it was first released in 2007, has further boosted Apple’s profits and revenues.

The handset has brought internet access on the move to the mass market, and led to an explosion in downloadable mobile “apps” – applications that enable a huge range of activities, from map reading to booking restaurants.

Meanwhile, this week saw the launch in the UK and eight other countries of Apple’s controversial iPad tablet- as 10 people has already killed themselves whilst making the product- see yesterday’s post below.

Apple has to look back to late 1989 to see the last time it was a bigger company than Microsoft.

Microsoft, whose operating system still run on more than 90% of the world’s personal computers, has not been able to match growth rates from its heyday of the 1990s.

Microsoft continues to make the majority of its earnings from its software and operating systems, and has struggled to successfully diversify into other products.