Apple on Thursday become the first US company to be worth more than $1 trillion on a public stock market.
The company on Tuesday reported second-quarter earnings that topped Wall Street expectations, sending shares surging by more than 5% into Wednesday. The rally continued on Thursday, propelling shares to the magic number of $207.05 apiece.
That price translates to a $1 trillion market cap based on the current estimated number of outstanding shares.
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In the nearly more than four decades since Steve Jobs founded the company in a California garage, Apple has become nearly synonymous with personal computing and mobile devices. After launching the iPhone — arguably its most famous product — in 2007, Apple now churns out over 40 million of the devices every quarter, helping it rake in $254.63 billion in revenue last year.
Adjusted for splits, Apple's stock price has risen nearly 40,000% since its initial public offering in 1980.
Now, the non-hardware services category is fueling Apple's continued growth. On Tuesday, the company said Apple Services — which includes things like the App Store and Apple Music — saw a 31% jump in revenue.
For context, passing the $1 trillion mark means Apple now has a value greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of all but 27 major countries, including Argentina, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, according to the CIA's world fact book.
Other companies have come close to the mark, but no public US company has hit a $1 trillion valuation. PetroChina briefly crossed the mark back in November 2007 — but for less than a day. The state-controlled oil firm is now valued at less than $500 billion and is smaller than Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
Elsewhere Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia, has reportedly been eyeing a public offering that could value it near $2 trillion, but the listing has been mired with delays.
Mega-cap tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google-parent Alphabet were also in the race to $1 trillion— but none of them could beat Apple in the end. Amazon has the second-largest US market cap as of Wednesday, at roughly $872.5 billion.
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Wall Street thinks Apple shares can go even higher, too. Analysts polled by Bloomberg have an average price target of $212.79, which would translate to a market cap of $1.046 trillion.
Source: markets.businessinsider
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