Apple becomes first US public company to reach US$2 trillion market cap

Apple hit a market cap of US$2 trillion Wednesday, doubling in valuation in just over two years. It is the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach the US$2 trillion milestone, CNBC reports.

Apple’s share price hit US$467.77, which pushed it over a US$2 trillion market cap just before 11 a.m. Eastern time in the US. It hit the US$2 trillion mark with a share price of US$467.77 based on an outstanding share count of 4,275,634,000 shares.

Apple first reached a US$1 trillion market cap on August 2, 2018. Wall Street has largely expected Apple to be the first to surpass the US$2 trillion mark.

On July 31, Apple surpassed the state oil giant Saudi Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. 

It didn’t take long for other tech giants to match Apple’s US$1 trillion market cap. Today, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet all have market caps above US$1 trillion.

Apple shares are up by 59.24 percent year-to-date, pushing through the pandemic that’s battered many companies. In the past year, shares have risen by 122.3 percent. 

The company posted a historically strong third quarter late July, including US$59.7 billion in revenue and double-digit growth in its products and services segments. Apple saw widespread retail closures during the quarter, especially in the United States, but touted both work-from-home trends and strong online sales as delivering a boost to overall operations.