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Recent Developments
On Monday, Apple Inc. became the first company in the world with a market valuation of $3 trillion. Various factors, including its expansion into new markets and the expectation of a more moderate approach to interest hikes by the Federal Reserve, are likely to be responsible for the surge in market value.
Apple became officially a $3 trillion company at the end of the trading day on the Nasdaq stock exchange after it breached the $3 trillion mark during intraday trading in January.
Apple’s achievement on Monday was the latest in a series of trillion-dollar valuations, as it was the first company to reach a $1 trillion valuation in 2018 and a $2 trillion valuation in 2020.
Brief Timeline of Apple StockÂ
1980 : Apple launches its IPO
1983 : It joins Fortune 500 companies
1987 : Apple stocks split ( The stock latter split in 2000, 2005, 2014 and 2020)
2011 : Its stock becomes the world’s most valuable stock and Itbecomes the most valuable company
2018 : It reaches $ 1 trillion evaluation
2020 : It reaches $ 2 trillion evaluation
2024 : It reaches $ 3 trillion evaluation
Possible reasonsÂ
Its growth has been the centre of attraction for investors, as their interest was piqued by the potential of artificial intelligence, with share holders also inclining towards companies with strong balance sheets and cash flows.
Its journey towards the $3 trillion milestone was accelerated by the launch of the augmented-reality headset, which is one of the riskiest products since the introduction of the first iPhone in the market.
The company’s stock price has also benefited from increasing iPhone sales and the buzz over its augmented reality headset, Apple Vision Pro, which will officially be released early next year.
Apple’s latest quarterly report in May indicated that its revenue and profits have surpassed experts and analysts expectations, and its track record of stock buybacks further strengthened its reputation as a sound investment in a time buoyed by economic uncertainty.
On Wednesday, Apple’s stock hit a record high and was on the brink of attaining the $3 trillion market valuation.
Apple’s stock rose 0.6% to end Wednesday at $189.25, putting its market value at $2.98 trillion.
Thomas Martin, Senior Portfolio Manager at Globalt Investments, stated that despite no new information that was supportive of Apple’s stock, the stock has performed exponentially well.
Apple recorded a growth of 46% in 2024, while chipmaker NVIDIA recorded a growth of 185%, thus making it the first chip-making company to have a stock market value worth $1 trillion. On similar lines, Meta and Tesla almost doubled their market values, while Microsoft increased by 40%.
Other trillion-dollar companies
Apart from Apple, there are only six companies with a trillion-dollar valuation, and five of them are tech firms, including Microsoft Corp. at $2.5 trillion,Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. at $1.5 trillion, E-commerce giant Amazon valued at $1.3 trillion, and NVIDIA at $ 1 trillion. The only non-technical company with a trillion-dollar valuation is the renown Oil and Gas company Saudi Aramco at $ 2 trillion.
Nvidia is the latest entrant in the trillion-dollar company club, and the growth of NVIDIA can be attributed to the trend of artificial intelligence. In May 2024, its market value nearly rose by $200 billion in a single day.
Electric car maker Tesla Inc. witnessed a 28% jump in its market capitalization in June due to various factors, including its deal with Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. to gain access to Tesla’s charging network, thus reinforcing Tesla’s chargers as the industry standard.
On the contrary, Alphabet Inc.’s market cap dipped by 2.3% in May to $1.53 trillion due to rising competition from other companies, including Microsoft Bing, which rose to prominence after its collaboration with the artificial intelligence responsible for ChatGPT.
