What Company Has the Highest Stock Price?
Discover the company with the highest stock price and gain nuanced insights into what truly defines a company's financial valuation.
Many people are curious about which company commands the highest per-share price in the world. This curiosity often stems from a perception that a higher stock price inherently signifies a “better” or more valuable company. This article explores the company currently holding this distinction and the factors contributing to a high share price.
The Company with the Highest Stock Price
The company with the highest stock price in the world is Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class A shares (BRK.A). As of late August 2025, a single Class A share was approximately $755,000 to $756,000. This exceptionally high price reflects the company’s unique structure and history.
Berkshire Hathaway is a multinational conglomerate holding company led by its chairman and CEO, Warren Buffett. The company owns a diverse portfolio of businesses across various sectors, including insurance, manufacturing, utilities, and retail. Its value has been built through decades of consistent financial performance and strategic investments. A key reason for its high per-share price is management’s decision to never split its Class A shares, maintaining a limited number of shares outstanding to attract long-term investors.
Understanding High Share Prices
A high per-share stock price results from a limited number of outstanding shares and sustained financial performance. When a company issues fewer shares to the public, each existing share represents a larger ownership stake and a greater claim on the company’s earnings and assets. This scarcity can naturally drive up the individual share price.
Beyond share scarcity, the underlying strength of the business significantly influences its stock price. Companies with consistent profitability, robust revenue growth, and effective management tend to see their share values appreciate over time. Investor confidence also plays a significant role; when investors perceive a company as having strong long-term prospects and a reliable business model, they are willing to pay a premium for its shares. This combination of limited supply and high demand from strong financial performance contributes to elevated individual share prices.
Distinguishing Share Price and Market Value
A company’s share price differs from its market value, also known as market capitalization. The share price represents the cost of a single share of the company’s stock. In contrast, market value provides a more comprehensive measure of a company’s overall size and worth.
Market value is calculated by multiplying the current share price by the total number of outstanding shares. For instance, a company with a share price of $100 and 10 million shares outstanding would have a market value of $1 billion. While Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares have the highest individual price, its total market capitalization, around $1.08 trillion as of August 2025, is substantial but not the highest in the world. Companies like Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft often have market capitalizations exceeding $3 trillion, despite their individual share prices being significantly lower than Berkshire Hathaway’s Class A shares. This illustrates that a high individual share price does not necessarily equate to the largest overall company value; market capitalization provides a more accurate representation of a company’s total worth.
The Role of Stock Splits
Stock splits are corporate actions that directly impact a company’s share price and the number of outstanding shares without changing the company’s overall market value. A forward stock split, such as a 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 split, increases the number of shares outstanding while proportionally decreasing the price per share. For example, in a 2-for-1 split, an investor holding one share at $100 would instead hold two shares at $50 each. Companies perform splits to make their shares more accessible to a broader range of investors and to improve trading liquidity.
Conversely, a reverse stock split consolidates existing shares into a smaller number, which increases the price per share. For instance, a 1-for-10 reverse split would turn ten shares at $10 each into one share at $100. Companies might undertake reverse splits to boost their share price, for instance, to meet minimum listing requirements or to make the stock appear more substantial. Both types of splits are purely accounting adjustments that reconfigure the stock price and share count, demonstrating how companies manage their stock structure and influence their per-share prices.