Apple operates the iPhone brand and has ranked among the world’s highest-market-cap companies.
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple in California in 1976. The company initially sold personal computers, including the Apple II, before expanding into music players, smartphones, tablets, and services. Its tightly integrated approach links hardware, operating systems, and digital services.
The iPhone debuted in January 2007 and went on sale later that year. It combined a mobile telephone, an internet communicator, and an iPod in one touchscreen device. The product became the central part of Apple’s business and created a large ecosystem around accessories, applications, cloud services, and subscriptions.
Apple is sometimes confused with the company that makes Android phones. Samsung Electronics is a major smartphone competitor, while Google develops Android. Apple designs the iPhone and controls its operating system, iOS. Its shares trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol AAPL, and investors commonly examine both product sales and services revenue when valuing the company.