Due to the effects of globalization and inflation, it is inevitable that at some point in the near future we will see our first trillion dollar company based on market capitalization. Barring worldwide economic collapse, I predict this will occur sometime within the next 10 years.

While it is inevitable that some company will eventually be worth a trillion dollars, which while be the first? In this article, I will reveal the 4 companies most likely to be the first to a trillion dollar market cap (hint: they are all good investment opportunities).

The Front Runner: Apple (AAPL)

In any discussion about the first company to hit a trillion dollar market cap, Apple has to be mentioned. AAPL has already been worth as much as $700B in the past. While the company is now worth just under $500B, it is not a far stretch to think it could eventually hit a trillion dollars given how much profit the company makes quarter after quarter.

One thing working against AAPL in the race to $1000B is that Apple now pays a dividend. If Apple is giving away a few billion dollars every quarter to shareholders, its potential market cap growth could slow down. It is not as if the company could grow faster if it did not pay the dividend (they are making much more than they can sensibly spend on R&D), but it is a few billion taken away from the market cap each quarter.

The Next Most Likely: Google (GOOG)

If AAPL is not the first to $1000B, then the next in line is GOOG. I predict Google will continue to grow their revenue year over year by double digits for at least the next several years. While revenue growth on a percentage basis may slow down due to the law of large numbers, Google is constantly exploring new opportunities and there is still a huge amount of growth left in Googles core services. More advertiser dollars are moving online each year and Google is the best positioned to take advantage of this trend.

Even if the market cap grows by just 12% a year, it would only take Google around 10 years to reach the trillion dollar market cap. I actually think Google is almost as likely as Apple to be the first to despite Apples 50% head start. This does not mean Google is necessarily better than Apple from an investing perspective, as Apples stock buybacks and dividends will increase shareholder value without drastically influencing market cap.

YouTube in particular is positioned to become significantly more profitable in the near future. Rapid decreases in broadband and storage costs are bringing down YouTubes costs significantly every year. Additionally, more and more people are getting high speed internet, giving them access to these videos. Finally, growing numbers of advertisers are discovering YouTubes advertising platform as a viable alternative to TV commercials to reach 18-30 year olds. In 10 years, those in the internet generation will make up the vast majority of the 21-40 year old demographic national advertisers most favored demographic.

The best part about Google is that they are extremely profitable and stand to grow more profitable with each year. Googles expenses are dropping rapidly as the decreasing cost of computing power, bandwidth, and storage not only affects YouTube but all of Googles services.

Longshot #1: Amazon (AMZN)

Amazon has trillion dollar potential, but they have a long way to go in order to reach the trillion dollar mark. Even with Amazons stellar performance so far this year, the stock is only worth about $150B. Amazon shows very little revenue as they invest large sums of money into increasing their shipping, warehousing, and distribution networks.

Eventually, Amazons shipping and distribution network is going to reach a tipping point where the cost of doing ecommerce with free shipping will be markedly less expensive for Amazon than the overhead of a traditional store. When this tipping point is reached, Amazon stands to grow massively.

Not only is Amazon the undisputed leader of business to consumer ecommerce, but it is their little-known (outside of investing and IT circles) Amazon Web Services division that puts Amazon in the running for massive, rapid growth. Amazon is a leader in hosting and cloud services for websites small and large. The traditional businesses of business computing, hosting, and other web services is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and is growing rapidly each year. This division of Amazon is not only very profitable but it is growing extremely quickly. Amazon has a great head start in this space if they can maintain their lead they will do very well as the market expands and matures.

Longshot #2: Alibaba

Alibaba is an interesting company that most investors know about, yet few investors realize how Alibabas business actually works. Alibaba makes it possible for any would-be distributor to purchase goods wholesale from factories located around the world. While the primary allure is to access factories in China, vendors can purchase products in bulk from manufacturers around the world with many locations (including the USA). Think of Alibaba like a combination of Amazon and eBay for wholesale goods.

Alibaba represents a tremendous opportunity for any would-be ecommerce vendor. Anyone can set up a niche ecommerce store and then purchase the products direct from China (or another factory) without having to go through any intermediary or even physically visit the location of the factory just order online and the products can be shipped to your door. You could set up a store selling light bulbs, hire a factory in China to mass produce the goods, import them, then sell them through your website, all without having to go through an intermediary.

While the total number of sales going through Alibaba is much smaller than Amazon, Alibaba charges transaction fees as well as a hefty membership fee for businesses to be able to sell on Alibaba. Given that orders on Alibaba typically start at $1,000 and can go into the millions, Alibaba is able to collect huge profits on its business. In 2012, Alibaba handled $170B in transactions significantly more than Amazon.

In its infancy, Alibaba had a bad reputation with the large number of scammers involved with the website, but over time the quality of the sites buyers and sellers has risen tremendously. With this increase in customer quality, the value of the company has also risen dramatically.

At the time of this writing, Alibaba is not a publicly traded company, and progress is slow as it is a Chinese company. As of September 2013, Alibaba has started working towards an IPO in the United States, so keep an eye out for this stock once it goes public.

An Alternate Possibility: An Unknown Disruptor of Major Industry

While it is extremely unlikely that one of these companies will not be the first one to a trillion dollar market cap, it is possible that a currently unknown company with industry-disrupting technology could emerge and ultimately usurp the favorites as the first trillion dollar company. This would be no different from the way Apple went from a market cap of under $100B to the most valuable company in the world in just a few short years.

This scenario is highly unlikely as even a company which that goes on to revolutionize some aspect of our lives will still require a large amount of time to grow large enough to hit $1000B before some of the other companies on the list. While AAPL or GOOG may or may not be the most valuable in the world 15 years from now, one of them will likely be the first to $1,000B.

Of industries that stand to be disrupted, transportation and energy seem to be the most ripe targets. If a company like Tesla Motors (TSLA) was able to make their next generation car, the Model X, a mass-adopted electric car, they would see massive growth.

While mass adoption of the Model X could drive the stocks price higher, mass adoption of the Model X is not enough to push the stock to $1,000B. Tesla would then have to go on to surpass the Model X in value with their next-next generation car in order to gain enough momentum and revenue to even think about approaching this mark. While this could all happen, this highly unlikely scenario is still placing Tesla at least 5 years out of becoming a large automaker, let alone a trillion dollar company. Given the lobbying power of the auto sales industry, it is likely to take longer than that for Tesla to sell cars the way they want in all 50 states.

While it is unlikely that anything other than the 4 companies listed in this article are the first to $1,000B, we may see a completely unknown or very small company of today reach the $2 trillion mark first.