Apple has been the world’s most valuable company for a while now, but the iPhone maker’s worth has just soared past an incredible new milestone.
The stock market value of Apple has finally crossed $800 billion, marking the Californian tech giant as the first company in the world to do so. It happened late on May 8, and has continued to climb above the figure ever since. At the time of writing, the valuation sits at $811 billion.
It’s important to note that the valuation figure we’re talking about here is called market capitalisation, or ‘market cap’. To work out market cap, you simply multiple the value of a single share by the total number of shares issued. It’s just one way of describing how much a publicly traded company is worth, and isn’t necessarily always the best way of measuring corporate success.
To put Apple’s incredible achievement into perspective, here’s a list of the top ten most valuable companies, based on their current market caps:
- Apple Inc. – $811 billion
- Alphabet – $652 billion
- Microsoft – $534 billion
- Amazon – $452 billion
- Facebook – $436 billion
- Berkshire Hathaway – $407 billion
- Exxon Mobil – $353 billion
- Johnson & Johnson – $333 billion
- JPMorgan Chase – $309 billion
- Wells Fargo – $275 billion
That said, Apple’s feat may have technically been topped by one of its biggest rivals decades ago. On December 30, 1999, Microsoft hit a market cap of $618.9. When you adjust that figure for inflation, it equates to $890 billion.
Still, it’s a major achievement by any measure. What’s more, the news comes just days after announced that it had cash reserves totalling an incredible $256.8 billion – more than the GDP of most countries on earth.
Many analysts now expect Apple to finally top the $1 trillion mark later this year. This lofty target is made more realistic by the fact that Apple is tipped to launch a special edition iPhone 8 this year, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.
Related: iPhone 7S release date
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