Apple became the world's first publicly traded company valued at US$1 trillion in August 2018.
The milestone reflected Apple’s enormous share price multiplied by its roughly 4.8 billion shares outstanding at the time. Investor confidence was driven by the iPhone, expanding services revenue, strong profitability, and a large program of share repurchases.
Apple had already passed major valuation landmarks, including US$100 billion, US$500 billion, and US$1 trillion. It later crossed US$2 trillion in 2020 and US$3 trillion in 2022, although market-cap rankings change as share prices move.
A common mix-up is confusing market capitalization with company revenue or cash holdings. Market cap is the total market value of a company’s outstanding shares, not the amount of money stored in its bank accounts.