Apple became the world’s first publicly traded company to reach a market capitalization of one trillion dollars in 2018.
Apple crossed the milestone on August 2, 2018, during trading on the Nasdaq stock market. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying a company’s share price by its number of outstanding shares, so the figure changes as the stock price moves. It is different from annual sales, profit, or the value of the company’s physical assets.
Apple’s rise to the trillion-dollar milestone followed decades of product development. The Macintosh established the company in personal computing, the iPod reshaped digital music players, and the iPhone created a vast smartphone ecosystem. Services such as the App Store, cloud services, subscriptions, and payments later became increasingly important.
A common mistake is to treat the milestone as a permanent ranking. Market capitalization changes every trading day, and other companies soon passed the same threshold. The 2018 achievement remains historically notable because it marked the first time a public company reached a trillion-dollar valuation based on its stock-market value.