It's not the biggest publicly traded company in the world right now. That honor still belongs to Apple with a market cap if just under $3.5 trillion. That's followed closely by Nvidia, currently worth $3.4 trillion. Microsoft isn't far behind at $3.2 trillion.
Still, now at a $1 trillion valuation, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 0.39%)(BRK.B 0.27%) is no slouch. Matching -- or eclipsing -- its size would be a considerable accolade.
With that as the backdrop, here's a closer look at three names that could be worth more than Berkshire Hathaway just five years from now.
Three big companies about to get even bigger
Berkshire Hathaway is hardly doomed. It's not even expected to lose value. Indeed, it's likely to grow its way to a larger market capitalization over the course of the coming five years.
There is something startling about Berkshire at this time, though -- a concern that's likely to linger for the foreseeable future. That's a lack of opportunities that interest Buffett and his lieutenants. As of the most recent look, the conglomerate is sitting on more cash than stock holdings, while its privately held companies like Geico insurance, flooring company Shaw, Duracell batteries, and Fruit of the Loom (just to name a few) make up the single biggest sliver of Berkshire's current capitalization.
Without explicitly saying as much, the Oracle of Omaha would rather invest in nothing new at this time than be forced to step into a bunch of holdings he doesn't see much reason in owning for the foreseeable future.
Just because few companies work as part of Berkshire Hathaway's value portfolio, however, it doesn't mean there aren't some that could be at home in yours as a growth holding. Here's a closer look at some of these prospects.
1. Eli Lilly
You almost certainly know the company is a drugmaker. What you may not realize is just how much of Eli Lilly's (LLY +0.72%) current revenue comes from its diabetes treatment Mounjaro and its weight-loss drug Zepbound. Last quarter, these products accounted for a respective 27% and 11% of the pharmaceutical giant's business.
Under normal circumstances, this degree of imbalance could eventually prove problematic. Not only does it leave a company too dependent on one or two particular profit centers, proven market opportunities like these also attract competitors.
These aren't normal circumstances, though. Mounjaro along with Zepbound -- both of which are the exact same molecular formula, called tirzepatide -- are still just getting started. Research and analytics outfit GlobalData predicts annual sales of Mounjaro could peak somewhere between $27 billion and $34 billion by 2029, versus its current annualized revenue run rate of just over $12 billion.
NYSE: LLY
Key Data Points
The thing is, there's every reason to believe sales of both of Eli Lilly's blockbuster drugs will continue growing the longer they're on the market and the more confidence would-be users gain in what they offer. Goldman Sachs suggests the anti-obesity drug market -- which overlaps with the diabetes treatment market -- could be worth $100 billion per year by 2030, meaning there's more than enough room for two leading products in this space. It's an opportunity with a scope of growth that Berkshire Hathaway just doesn't seem to have.
And it doesn't have far to go to become bigger than Buffett's baby. Eli Lilly's current market cap is right around $650 billion.
2. Visa
With nothing more than a passing thought, credit card companies like Visa (V 0.68%) don't seem like particularly high-growth holdings. Payments are simply a reflection of economic activity, after all, and the global economy's growth rates are relatively limited.
Visa is consistently outpacing overall worldwide spending growth, though, for a couple of reasons. The first of these reasons is simply that cards continue to displace cash and checks as forms of payment.
The U.S. Federal Reserve reports that between 2016 and 2023, cash fell as the preferred form of payments made within the United States, from 31% of transactions then to 16% now, while credit card usage soared from 18% of transactions to 32%. Plastic is simply easier and more convenient to use.
And, given the ongoing growth of e-commerce, in many cases cards are increasingly the only viable means of purchasing certain goods and services. Given the Census Bureau's estimate that only about 16% of domestic retail spending is currently done online, don't be surprised to see this proportion continue growing along with card-based transaction sizes.
The same basic dynamics are evident overseas as well, of course.
V Revenue (Quarterly) data by YCharts
And the other reason Visa's been able to reliably drive annual top-line growth between 8% and 15% and even-stronger profit growth? Because it's not simply resting on its laurels and existing dominance of most of this market (Capital One reports Visa accounts for over 60% of domestic card-based purchase volume).
Visa makes a point of innovating in ways that put more of its plastic in consumers' hands, and inducing these cardholders to use their cards more often -- sometimes without even knowing exactly how its efforts might pay off. Namely, Visa supports several so-called Innovation Centers all over the world, which not only operate somewhat independently of the core company, but even operate independently of one another.
Fun fact: Buffett already owns a stake in Visa. Berkshire Hathaway's currently sitting on an 8.3 million share/$2.6 billion position in the credit card company, underscoring the argument for holding some in your portfolio as well.
3. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
Finally, add Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM 4.37%) to your list of stocks that could be worth more than Berkshire Hathaway a mere five years from now.
Granted, it's got the least distance to travel to surpass Berkshire's size. Depending on both stocks' recent performances, in fact, Taiwan Semiconductor may already be the bigger company; its most recent market cap was also in the ballpark of $1 trillion.
It's still a name worth highlighting, though, if only because it's one of the market's more underestimated tickers that could be considerably bigger by 2030 than it is right now.
Just as the same suggests, Taiwan Semiconductor manufactures semiconductors and microchips. That description doesn't do it justice, however. This company is actually a third-party ("contract") manufacturer for many of the semiconductor brands you may be more familiar with. Its key customers include Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm, just to name a few. All these contractual manufacturing relationships mean Taiwan Semiconductor is technically the world's biggest chipmaker, and by far the market leader of the advanced semiconductor business.
NYSE: TSM
Key Data Points
Some of the tech industry's titans have tried to wean themselves from their enormous reliance on one single player. But it's proving tough to do. That's largely because -- thanks to the advent of AI and the data centers it requires -- the chip industry is growing faster than these companies can build their own chipmaking foundries. PwC predicts the global semiconductor market is poised to grow more than the twice as fast as the planet's GDP does between now and 2030, when the industry could be worth more than $1 trillion per year.
This is of course a huge tailwind for the well-positioned Taiwan Semiconductor to plug into.
