Just two years after becoming the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, Apple has officially doubled its value to $2 trillion. The remarkable feat means it’s tied with a non-tech firm for bragging rights as the world’s most valuable company — for now.
The $2 trillion market cap number is based on Apple’s stock breaking a price of $467.77 per share, multiplied by the company’s most recent report of 4,275,634,000 outstanding shares. That having been said, Apple has aggressively repurchased its own shares in recent years, and reduced the number by 58.7 million during the past quarter alone. As a result, though Apple’s own Stocks app showed a $2 trillion valuation, the actual market capitalization may vary slightly from the number.
Prior to hitting the official milestone today, shares were trading in the $464 range, flirting with $467 before pushing to the $467.77 mark. Apple’s three closest tech company rivals — Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft — all crossed the $1 trillion mark after Apple, but today, their market caps trail the Cupertino company’s by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Apple is technically the second company to reach the $2 trillion mark, as the Saudi Arabian Oil Company — also known as Saudi Aramco — first hit that number in December 2019 on the strength of then-solid demand for fossil fuels. Aramco was subsequently hit by COVID-19-related travel declines and falling oil prices, as well as skepticism over the value of its assets, and its market cap recently hovered near $1.8 trillion (6.68 trillion Saudi riyals). But the oil producer returned to the $2 trillion mark on Wednesday as Apple came within striking distance of its prior record.
By contrast, Apple has generated remarkably strong revenues over the past two quarters despite the global pandemic, and analysts expect that the company’s good times will continue for the foreseeable future. Macs and iPads have both seen upticks as customers sought work from home and school from home solutions, while Apple’s media streaming, warranty, and payment processing services have continued to grow at a brisk pace. Updates to the popular iPhone and Apple Watch are expected this fall, only slightly off the normal September schedule, with the first new ARM-based “Apple Silicon” Macs following soon thereafter.
Apple has also announced that it will split its stock by a 4:1 ratio, making shares available on August 31 for a quarter of their prior price — a move that will allow new investors to buy in, likely fueling another round of steady growth regardless of questions over the company’s future in China, one of its largest markets. Despite cooperating with the Chinese government, Apple has faced the threat of trade-related restrictions due to saber rattling by the Trump Administration, imperiling both its hardware production and sales in the region.
