Apple now world’s first $1-T company
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc. on Thursday became the first $1 trillion publicly listed US company, crowning a decade-long rise fueled by its ubiquitous iPhone that transformed it from a niche player in personal computers into a global powerhouse spanning entertainment and communications.
The tech company’s stock jumped 2.9 percent to end the day at $207.39, giving it a market capitalization of $1.002 trillion. During the session, Apple’s stock market value reached as much as $1.006 trillion.
Apple has rallied about nine percent since Tuesday, when it reported June-quarter results above expectations and said it bought back $20 billion of its own shares. It was Apple’s best two-day run since April 2014.
In a memo to Apple’s more than 120,000 employees on Thursday that was seen by Reuters, chief executive Tim Cook said the $1 trillion valuation was “a significant milestone” that gave Apple employees “much to be proud of.” But he said it was “not the most important measure” of the company’s success.
“Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values,” Cook said in the memo.
Started in the garage of co-founder Steve Jobs in 1976, Apple has pushed its revenue beyond the economic outputs of Portugal, New Zealand and other countries. Along the way, it has changed how consumers connect with one another and how businesses conduct daily commerce.
Apple’s stock market value is greater than the combined capitalization of Exxon Mobil Corp., Procter & Gamble Co. and AT&T Inc. It now accounts for four percent of the S&P 500.
The Silicon Valley stalwart’s stock has surged more than 50,000 percent since its 1980 initial public offering, dwarfing the S&P 500’s approxi- mately 2,000 percent increase during the same almost four decades.
One of three founders, Jobs was driven out of Apple in the mid-1980s, only to return a decade later and rescue the computer company from near bankruptcy.
He launched the iPhone in 2007, dropping “Computer” from Apple’s name and super-charging the cellphone industry, catching Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Nokia off guard. That put Apple on a path to overtake Exxon Mobil in 2011 as the largest US company by market value.
During that time, Apple evolved from selling Mac personal computers to becoming an architect of the mobile revolution with a cult-like following.
Jobs, who died in 2011, was succeeded as chief executive by Tim Cook, who has doubled the company’s profits but struggled to develop a new product to replicate the society-altering success of the iPhone, which has seen sales taper off in recent years.
In 2006, the year before the iPhone launch, Apple generated less than $20 billion in sales and net profit just shy of $2 billion. By last year, its sales had grown more than 11-fold to $229 billion – the fourth highest in the S&P 500 – and net income had mushroomed at twice that rate to $48.4 billion, making it the most profitable publicly listed US company.