Apple > Google > Facebook > Yahoo: A Roundup Of 2011′s Debut Tech Valuations

Today marked the first official trading day of the new year, and if the commonly held stock trader belief that January is an indicator of things to come for the new year holds true, Apple and Facebook are in for a pretty good year.

Starting with the biggest billions first, Apple now has a market cap of more than $302 billion, which is more than Microsoft ($239 billion), Walmart ($194 billion), Google ($193 billion) and pretty much any other huge, publicly traded company that you can think of besides Exxon Mobil ($375 billion).

Looks like Meizu has a few more M9s to go before they pose a serious threat. Still, it will be interesting to see how long it will take for Android pushes Google’s company value ahead of Microsoft, when they’ll officially become the biggest threat in Apple’s rearview mirror. While Apple has a head start with the iPad, if Android tablets can experience the kind of growth Android phones have enjoyed it’s something which might not be far off.

On to the not yet public companies, Facebook raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and previous investor DST (a Russian investment firm) at a $50 billion valuation which makes the company worth more than eBay ($37 billion), TimeWarner ($35 billion) and Yahoo ($21 billion). The company is resisting pressure to go public, which most people suspect is to avoid having to answer to shareholders.

Questions Facebook may wish to avoid are on how it plans to add the level of revenue which would justify such a massive valuation. Groupon, who famously rejected Google’s multi-billion dollar buyout offer, recently raised $500 million – DST was the lead investor there also – at a valuation of almost $5 billion. Which is still a lot of money, but considering that Groupon has revenues estimated to be around $2 billion and Facebook has revenue estimated at… $2 billion (as of September). {TechCrunch}

So what makes one young company estimated to have $2 billion in revenue worth 10 times the amount of another company estimated to have $2 billion in revenue? Well, the fact that Facebook has such as massive user base plays into it. As much money as Groupon makes, they still aren’t anywhere near having 500 million users. Then, there’s the revenue split. Though Groupon’s revenue is impressive any way you slice it, they have to split it with merchants, and likely salespeople as well. Facebook isn’t splitting ad revenue with anyone, so net profit is probably a lot higher. Still, is that worth more money than say Time Warner for example? This is the company that owns a cable company, cable networks, magazines and more, and somehow those things are worth less than a single website? Granted it’s a massively popular website which has been innovative in extending itself to other websites, but are we the only ones wondering if this is going to end in an AOL-like drop off in a few years?

For the year ahead though, we’re looking forward to how this all plays out.