Apple became the first company in the world to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization during a 2018 stock-market session.
On August 2, 2018, Apple's share price rose enough for the company's outstanding shares to be valued collectively at approximately $1 trillion. The record was based on public equity prices and therefore depended on the number of shares counted as outstanding.
Market capitalization is different from enterprise value. Enterprise value also considers debt and cash, while market capitalization measures the value of common equity. This distinction matters when comparing companies with different financing structures.
Apple's record was part of a broader transformation in global corporate rankings, in which technology companies became dominant among the world's most valuable listed businesses. The milestone is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Microsoft because Microsoft was an early technology giant, but Apple reached it first.