PetroChina became the first publicly traded company to reach a US$1 trillion market capitalization during intraday trading in 2007.
Its Shanghai listing surged on its first trading day in November 2007, briefly giving the company a valuation above the trillion-dollar threshold. PetroChina is the listed arm of China National Petroleum Corporation, one of China’s major state-owned energy groups.
The milestone was brief: the share price fell back after the initial excitement, so this episode is different from companies that later sustained trillion-dollar valuations. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s share price by its outstanding shares, so it can change rapidly during a trading session.
PetroChina is often confused with the first US company to close above US$1 trillion, which was Apple in 2018. The two milestones use different dates, markets and definitions of reaching the threshold.