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Apple Inc lost its crown as the world's most valuable public company to Microsoft Corp on Friday, as the iPhone maker's shares continued their downward slide, Reuters reported.

Apple took a $6 billion hit to its sales during the fiscal fourth quarter due to a nagging global supply chain problem, leading to a miss on Wall Street expectations. Top boss Tim Cook said the impact will be even worse in the current holiday sales quarter. read more

"Compared to less hardware focused FAANG peers, Apple is also a lot more exposed to supply chain disruption," said Sophie Lund-Yates, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Cupertino, California-based Apple's shares were down 3.6% at $147, implying a market capitalization of $2.41 trillion. The Windows software maker's shares were up 0.7% at $326.8 at a market valuation of $2.46 trillion. Microsoft's shares were trading at a record high.

Apple, which has repurchased $421.7 billion over the years, had announced a massive $90 billion share buyback in April. As a result, the company's outstanding stock pool keeps shrinking, ending its fiscal fourth quarter with 16.4 billion shares.

Microsoft's stock has surged more than 45% this year, with pandemic-induced demand for its cloud-based services driving sales. Shares of Apple have climbed 15% so far this year.