Outta the way, Switzerland: Apple economy is G20-sized

SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple CEO Tim Cook just delivered a lucrative first quarter to his company's shareholders.

He also put some sizable distance between Apple and its competition for the hearts and minds of global investors – including the Swiss.

As a cold, snowy winter kept Americans trapped inside with their stock portfolios, many got busy with the buy button on Apple shares.

The new iPhone 6 set sales records during a closely-watched rollout, and eager buyers of both smartphone and stock pushed the worth of the Cupertino, Calif., firm to $736 billion as of March 30.

At that lofty level, a company founded in 1975 by two guys named Steve is worth more than the market value of Microsoft and Google combined.

The Apple economy is now also worth a little less than Saudi Arabia's and a little more than Switzerland's on the list of the 20 largest economies in the world.

The Apple operation built by Cook and now led by him for roughly four years as CEO generated a record $18 billion profit during the last three months of 2014.

Analysts expect the company's earnings per share (EPS) to rise about 9% for the fiscal year ending in September, with sales seen jumping 24%

But with the bigger phone and the watch already priced into the market, how long can Cook keep the positive vibes going?

Wall Street also sees EPS rising 9% in 2016, even though sales growth is expected to slow to 5%.

That's a long-term disconnect worth watching.

Cook, who announced last year that he was gay, has begun to use his newly-higher public profile to support civil rights and -- more lately, along with Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and other tech execs -- denounce state laws they view as discriminatory.

When Apple reports first-quarter earnings on April 27, investors will get to hear more from Cook regarding Apple's business.

In other first-quarter valuation news, Google surged past Microsoft after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella began giving away Office software.

Facebook overtook Alibaba as the fourth-most valuable tech firm, as some of the IPO froth came off the Chinese e-commerce giant.

Intel shares were among the biggest laggards among the largest 20 tech companies, hurt by the same market shift that's dogging Microsoft: more hardware and business software being delivered to consumers via mobile devices, while PC sales growth sputters.

John Shinal has covered tech and financial markets for more than 15 years at Bloomberg, BusinessWeek,The San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and others. Follow him on Twitter: @johnshinal.