Apple becomes the world’s first $1 trillion company

Apple have made financial history. The computing and smartphone giant has overtaken its Silicon Valley rivals to become the world's first trillion-dollar public company.c

The stock has continued to rise since Apple announced its better-than-expected quarterly results on Tuesday. The market value reached the milestone figure after its shares closed at the record high of $207.39 in New York.

Although the Chinese energy company PetroChina was recorded as the world’s first trillion-dollar company following its 2007 flotation, only 2% of the company was released for public trading. The Chinese government held most of its shares, and the business has since deteriorated to around $220 billion.

In 2006 Apple had sales of less than $20 billion, with profits of almost $2 billion. Since the iPhone was released in 2007, Apple’s shares have climbed by 1,100% and last year’s sales reached a massive $229 billion with profits of $48 billion.

Apple’s shares have risen by almost a third in the past year alone. Since the company was first listed in 1980, the company’s shares have soared by an immense figure of 50,000%.

Apple’s incredible growth is currently unrivalled, and it now stands as the most profitable listed US company. The company’s shares trade at a reasonable 15 times expected profits, in contrast to Microsoft at 25 times and Amazon at a massive 82 times.

Although Apple is up more than 20% this year, Huawei has recently overtaken Apple to become the world’s second largest smartphone vendor. The Chinese smartphone maker sold approximately 54 million phones last quarter – 41% more than last year.

Wall Street analysts predict that Apple will grow to a valuation of $225 a share. Brian White of Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. has gone one step further with his forecast of $275 per share - the latter of which would price Apple at $1.3 trillion.

Not all of Silicon Valley have benefited from the same growth. Last week, Facebook lost over $120 billion as its shares plunged by 20% - making it the worst day for an individual company in US stock market history.

Other tech giants are thriving, with Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft experiencing near record-highs this year. Amazon’s valuation stands at almost $900 billion, while Google and Microsoft are both worth over $800 billion.