Apple, already the world’s most valuable company, became the first U.S. publicly listed company to hit a $1-trillion stock market cap on Thursday.
The tech company’s shares jumped 2.8 per cent on the NASDAQ stock exchange Thursday morning, surpassing the $207.04 share price needed to cross the historic threshold. The gain topped a rise of more than five per cent on Wednesday, when the company revealed better-than-expected quarterly earnings. (All dollar values are U.S.)
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Apple is now worth over half of Canada’s $1.7-trillion dollar economy and far more than most other countries.
In fact, there are only 16 countries with a GDP equal to or greater than Apple’s current market valuation, according to World Bank data:
Australia: $1.3 trillion
Brazil: $2 trillion
Canada: $1.7 trillion
China: $12 trillion
France: $2.6 trillion
Germany: $3.7 trillion
India: $2.6 trillion
Indonesia: $1 trillion
Italy: $1.9 trillion
Japan: $4.9 trillion
South Korea: $1.5 trillion
Mexico: $1.1 trillion
Russia: $1.6 trillion
Spain: $1.3 trillion
U.K.: $2.6 trillion
U.S.: $19.4 trillion
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Started in the garage of co-founder Steve Jobs in 1976, Apple has pushed its revenue beyond the economic outputs of Portugal, New Zealand and other countries. Along the way, it has changed how consumers connect with one another and how businesses conduct daily commerce.
The Silicon Valley stalwart’s stock has surged more than 50,000 per cent since its 1980 initial public offering, dwarfing the S&P 500’s approximately 2,000 per cent increase during the same almost four decades.
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One of five U.S. companies since the 1980s to take a turn as Wall Street’s largest company by market capitalization, Apple could lose its lead to the likes of Alphabet Inc. or Amazon.com Inc. if it does not find a major new product or service as demand for smartphones loses steam.
– With files from Reuters
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