Apple will outsell IBM and HP in next two years

Apple's revenues will pass IBM's next year and HP's in 2012, a top analyst has predicted, making Steve Jobs's company the undisputed king of Silicon Valley.

Apple is already the second largest US company by capitalisation, behind Exxon and ahead of Microsoft in fourth.

But George Colony, founder and chief executive of analyst house Forrester Research, predicted that overall sales, and applications revenue in particular, will make Apple dominant in the market.

"They'll be bigger than IBM next year, and they'll be bigger than HP the year after that," Colony said in an interview with Bloomberg.

At current growth rates "they're going to be a $200bn revenue company", Colony said.

HP is the current technology sales leader, with $126bn in annual revenues ahead of IBM at $99.9bn.

Apple is widely expected to pass the $100bn mark in the next year, and Colony said that the company could expect 50 per cent sales growth for at least the next two years.

The biggest challenge the company faces is the loss of Steve Jobs. Apple should have a product lifecycle set for around the next four years, but after that all bets are off, and Apple's market valuation would take a huge hit without its founder.

"Remember, every two years they have to fill [Apple retail outlets] with new stuff," he said.

"Without Steve Jobs as the chief executive, I think it will be much harder for them to do that. That would be a massive, massive hit to the valuation."

Colony was also pessimistic about Google's view of the market, stating that the company is too focused on internet search advertising.

Application-based use of the internet would cut the company's advertising revenue by stripping out much of Google's traffic, according to the analyst.

Google also has management issues. The departure of Eric Schmidt and his replacement with co-founder Larry Page risks a repeat of Yahoo's recent management history.

"When it comes to Larry Page I have two words for you," Colony said. "Jerry Yang."