Apple has become the first publicly traded American company to reach a market value of $1 trillion. The announcement comes after a jump in the Cupertino company's stock following strong Q3 earnings.
Apple hit the $1 trillion mark in the morning of Aug. 2 when its stock crossed $207.05 per share. Given the highly unstable nature of the stock market, however, it's possible Apple won't retain the honor for very long, although the fact that it was able to get there is an achievement in itself.
Apple Becomes A Trillion-Dollar Company
Apple isn't the first company to reach $1 trillion, though — PetroChina is, having done so back in 2007, as The Verge notes. Apple is, however, the first United States-based company to reach that milestone and, at the moment, the only trillion-dollar company in the entire market. Nipping at the heels is Amazon, which is likely to reach the $1 trillion mark soon after posting positive results for the third financial quarter.
"I think it just speaks to just how powerful the Apple ecosystem has become over the last few decades," according to GBH Insights analyst Dan Ives, as CNBC reports. "This is not the end, that they hit $1 trillion. I view this as just kind of speaking to a new stage of growth and profitability."
The Key To Apple's Success
Ives said Apple's growing services and software revenue are key to Apple's trillion-dollar achievement. That includes the App Store, AppleCare, iTunes, Apple Pay, and cloud services, which collectively netted Apple a $9.55 billion record revenue for the June quarter alone.
"It just speaks to the vision that [co-founder Steve Jobs] and now [CEO Tim Cook] have had in making sure Apple isn't just a hardware company," said Ives.
It can be argued that the real reason Apple stands where it stands today is because no other company has the level of fan loyalty Apple has, and these people have remained loyal for so long because Apple simply makes great products. Sure, it's made a lot missteps since the original unveiling of the iPod, and there are now various Android phones that are more inexpensive yet boasts greater performance than some of Apple's flagship phones — but if the company has mastered one thing, it's keeping people locked into its ecosystem, making it hard for would-be switchers to use anything other than an Apple device.
Whether it can keep being a trillion-dollar company is the question, of course. Do you think it could? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
