Technology giant Apple on Thursday became the first private sector company in history to be worth $1 trillion (Rs 68 lakh crore) after its share price reached an all-time high, climbing above $207 (Rs 14,202), Fox Business reported.
The company’s share jumped by more than 8% this week after it reported impressive quarterly earnings on Tuesday, driven largely by increase in sales of iPhones. The company’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, in a call with investors, touted the company’s growth in sectors such as smart home products, wearables and services such as the App Store and Apple Pay, National Public Radio reported.
This makes Apple worth more than the economies of countries such as Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Taiwan.
The company founded by Steve Jobs, however, is not the first to achieve this feat. In 2007, PetroChina Company’s market cap surpassed the $1-trillion mark though the Chinese company’s complex structure ensured that most of the shares stayed with the government, The Wall Street Journal reported. This made it difficult to determine the company’s actual value.
Amazon, whose worth was just a third of Apple’s in 2011, has seen its share prices surge in recent times. On Thursday, it was worth about $875 billion while Google’s parent company Alphabet was worth about $850 billion. The value of Microsoft is also more than $800 billion.
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