A day after posting strong results for the third quarter of fiscal 2018, Apple has become the world’s first publicly traded company with a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.

At press time Apple’s stock cost $206.90 and its market capitalization was $1.017 trillion. Meanwhile earlier this morning Apple’s stock hit $207.50, so it is likely that the company will stay around a $1 trillion market cap mark in the coming hours or days before either heading north or south.

Apple’s best Q3 results ever were driven by strong sales of iPhones as well as a massive increase in revenue it gets for its services. In fact, while the company’s iPhone earnings for the quarter grew 20% year-over-year because of higher smartphone ASPs, Apple’s services revenue grew 31% year-over-year as the company has been expanding its offerings for some time now. At the same time, sales of iPad tablets and Mac PCs dropped 5% year-over-year.

Originally founded as a maker of computers in 1976, Apple expanded to dozens of product categories in the 1990s, many of which were unsuccessful. After Steve Jobs returned to Apple as the CEO in 1997, he axed most of the product lines to focus on PCs. Starting from 2001, the company started to expand its family of products once again with the iPod music player that was followed by the Apple TV in 2006 (called iTV originally), the iPhone in 2007, the iPad in 2010, the Apple Watch in 2015, and the HomePod in 2017. In addition, the company acquired Beats Electronics in 2014. It is evident that the company branched into three new categories of products in the last eight years and while sales of Apple Watch and Beats products are increasing, Apple’s corporate revenues are growing mainly because of higher iPhone selling prices, such as the iPhone X at $999.

While Apple is without any doubts ahead of other US-based high-tech companies in terms of market cap, it is not the world’s most expensive firm per se. Depending on who is doing calculations, the valuation of Saudi Aramco state-controlled oil and gas company is between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Therefore, Apple still needs to grow further in a bid to become the world’s most valuable company in history.

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  • QinX - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    Such an inconceivably high number you're writing Billion most of the time ;)
  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    Something like that!
  • jsntech - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    AT editors: do you ever plan on resuming Mac reviews? I've always enjoyed AT's Mac reviews and am disappointed they seem to have largely ceased.
  • Ian Cutress - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    Ryan's on vacation this week, but he has our sample:

    https://twitter.com/RyanSmithAT/status/10200648714...
  • solipsism - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    I don't recall ever getting an iPhone X review, and the iPhone is far and away a more popular product than their PC line.
  • iwod - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link

    Yeah, the good old days I enjoy reading Anand's review on Apple product. I wonder what he is doing now in Apple.
  • rocky12345 - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    As Austen Powers would say 100 Trillion Dollars well that's what he would be guide to say by his advisors with today's inflation from when the movies were made...:)
  • smilingcrow - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    When did tech review sites start reporting the financial results and stock prices of tech companies so assiduously?
    I don't recall this in the 90s or 00s!
    As long as a company is solvent to the extent that they can honour their warranties I'm happy.
  • dagnamit - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    probably since this site's namesake, I can only imagine, made a brazillion dollars investing in APPL, before jumping in entirely. I bought a 1st Gen iPod Touch on release day and after some tinkering a little more online research was so astounded that I said out loud to myself, "They're going to make a telephone out of this thing? It'll be the biggest thing ever." And lo, it came to pass. iOS, at the time, was so far beyond any competitor that it was mind-boggling. When the App Store was released, you could tell what a game changer it was. What a time, I only wish I'd had money back then.

    /end rantmode
  • smilingcrow - Thursday, August 2, 2018 - link

    That's fine but I couldn't give a shit about other peoples' stock market investments.
    But Sign 'O' The Times no Doubt.
    Never mind the product, look at the margins and the potential for the stock price.
    Wouldn't it be funny if Apple Inc turned out to be a bubble investment scenario where iPhone buyers actually prefer to pay more for an iPhone as they think it will help the stock price.
    That makes more sense than most reasons for paying that much for such a device.

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