Apple became the first U.S. corporation to reach a $2 trillion market capitalization in 2020.
Apple crossed the milestone on August 19, 2020, during trading on the Nasdaq. Like every market-capitalization milestone, the figure came from multiplying the share price by the number of shares outstanding.
The achievement followed years of growth in the iPhone business and increasing attention to services such as the App Store, Apple Music, cloud storage, and payments. Apple's large installed base allowed it to generate revenue from customers who already owned its devices.
The milestone does not mean Apple held $2 trillion in cash, nor does it represent annual sales. Market capitalization is the market's collective valuation of a company's equity and can rise or fall rapidly. Apple had already been the first public company to reach $1 trillion in 2018, making the later $2 trillion threshold a continuation of the same valuation story.