So no, Apple is not the big tech with the most cash. They do have a much higher market cap than the others but it's simply based on their brand image and speculation.
Apple's higher market cap is not based significantly on their image and speculation.
It's based on their consistently enormous income generation.
Apple has $114 billion in operating income over the past four quarters. Alphabet is close to $75b by comparison; Microsoft is $83b; Meta is $29b. Amazon is a joke at $12b (which is increasingly being reflected in their very mediocre stock market performance; Amazon stock has nearly contracted on an inflation adjusted basis over five years).
For large corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, etc., profit generation is overwhelmingly what matters. Apple has led the way on that for a long time now and it's reflected in their market cap.
Amazon extracts a poor margin out of their $514 billion in sales. Over the past four quarters their operating income margin is a pathetic ~2.4%.
Apple's operating income margin is ~29.4% by comparison. They have a vastly superior business.
Eventually Amazon investors will tire of the terrible stock market returns that present Amazon is generating and the garbage that is retail and they'll demand the company split itself up. That will involve spinning off AWS so investors can realize max value for that (before it's too late and growth slows to a crawl in that space).
I am not going to bet my life on it, but as per [0] the definition of the «[cash] reserve» is: «In financial accounting, reserve always has a credit balance and can refer to a part of shareholders' equity, a liability for estimated claims, or contra-asset for uncollectible accounts».
So it refers to a credit balance, and it does not mention investments.
The term "cash reserves" is not a standard accounting term or classification. "Cash reserves" is commonly used to refer to funds set aside by a company or organization for specific purposes, such as contingencies, future investments, or working capital needs. These reserves are typically considered as part of a company's cash and cash equivalents.
Under GAAP, cash (and cash equivalents) includes currency on hand, deposits in bank accounts, and any highly liquid investments that have an original maturity of three months or less. Cash equivalents are short-term investments that are readily convertible to known amounts of cash and have original maturities of three months or less from the date of purchase
That's a slightly different thing - a reserve account is what you've correctly linked, but what people here are talking about is just a basic balance sheet categories of cash and marketable securities;
So they have $25 billion in cash/cash equivalents (T-bills), $31 billion in "Current Marketable Securities" which are just those that are liquid this year so short-term debt and the like, and then $110 billion in long-term marketable securities which can be medium term bonds and other investments on a >1 year timeline.
Add those up and you get to $166 billion which is a good proxy for the amount of money they can invest today.
Thank you for the clarification. Wikipedia links both, «cash reserves» and the accounting style reserves definitions, into a single article, which I have found somewhat puzzling. A subsection in the same article outlining or expanding on the difference between the two would be beneficial.