The company’s share price touched $182.88 in lunchtime trading on Monday, crossing the $3 trillion barrier before trimming some of its gains.
With this achievement, Apple, the maker of the iPhone, Mac computers, and the Apple timepiece, has become the world’s most valuable publicly traded business.
It is worth more than all of the world’s cryptocurrencies combined.
The combined value of cryptos currently stands at $2.2 trillion, according to data obtained from coinmarketcap.com.
It also implies that Apple’s net worth exceeds the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries including India ($2.9 trillion), France ($2.9 trillion) and Russia ($1.6 trillion).
At a market value of $3 trillion, Apple tripled its valuation in less than four years. It reached $1 trillion in valuation in August 2018 and doubled the figure two years later in August 2020.
While iPhone is still the biggest sales driver, Apple’s services business grew 25.6 percent year-over-year and delivered more than $18 billion in revenue last quarter.
“Hitting $3 trillion is another historical moment for Apple as the company continues to prove the doubters wrong with the renaissance of growth story playing out in Cupertino,” Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities said.
“The linchpin to Apple’s valuation re-rating remains its Services business which we believe is worth $1.5 trillion in the eyes of the Street.”
Patrick Burton, co-portfolio manager of the MainStay Winslow Large Cap Growth Fund, which holds about 2.75 million Apple shares, said, “I never thought I’d see a $US3 trillion market cap, but it speaks to Apple’s prospects over the next five to 10 years”.
“We feel very good about the outlook, and continue to see meaningful opportunities ahead, with a stable iPhone franchise and growth drivers from both services and new products. It has really been a great growth stock, and the valuation is sustainable.”
Apple isn’t the only company in the trillion-dollar club; Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Tesla all have market caps exceeding $1 trillion.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.