Apple became the first publicly traded company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2018.
The milestone was reached on August 2, 2018, when Apple’s share price rose enough for the value of its outstanding shares to pass $1 trillion. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s share price by its total number of shares.
Apple’s achievement reflected strong demand for the iPhone, services such as the App Store, and other products including the Mac and iPad. It also showed how much the company had grown since its near-bankruptcy period in the 1990s.
The milestone is sometimes described as the first trillion-dollar company without qualification. PetroChina briefly reached a similar nominal valuation in 2007 during its stock-market debut, but Apple is widely recognized as the first U.S. public company to reach the $1 trillion mark on a sustained modern-market basis.