PetroChina’s 2007 Shanghai listing briefly gave it a market capitalization of about $1 trillion.
PetroChina shares surged on their first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in November 2007. At the peak, the company’s implied market value reached roughly $1 trillion, making it the first company widely reported to touch that level in market-cap terms.
The valuation was brief and fell sharply afterward, which is why later records often emphasize companies that crossed the threshold in more sustained or widely accepted circumstances. PetroChina remained one of China’s largest listed energy companies, with its fortunes linked to oil and gas production, refining, and energy prices.
This historical event is frequently compared with Apple’s 2018 milestone. Apple is usually described as the first U.S. company to reach $1 trillion and the first company to sustain the modern trillion-dollar era, while PetroChina’s brief 2007 peak predates it.