Apple became the first publicly traded firm to surpass a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2018.
Apple reached the milestone on August 2, 2018, when its shares rose after the company reported strong quarterly results. The calculation used the market price of Apple’s shares and the number of shares outstanding after years of stock buybacks and corporate growth.
The achievement made Apple the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach the figure. Saudi Aramco, a state-controlled oil company, later became the first listed company to reach $2 trillion during its 2019 market debut, a different milestone.
Apple’s path to the record included the iPhone, introduced in 2007, as well as the expansion of services such as the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud. Market capitalization is an investor valuation, not the amount of cash held by a company.