Apple stock climbed past $208 a share for the first time in the company’s history on Thursday, pushing the California tech company’s value over $1,000,000,000,000. Apple is the first corporation in the world to reach the $1 trillion milestone.
From candy-colored home computers to digital music players and revolutionary smart phones, Apple has pushed through numerous peaks and valleys, eventually catapulting to international ubiquity under former CEO Steve Jobs. After Jobs’ death in 2011, current CEO Tim Cook took the reigns, expanding the company rapidly. Over the past year alone, Apple stock has risen more than 20%.
“Could anyone really imagine this back then?” Apple’s former software chief Avie Tevanian told the New York Times. “We hoped to make the company very successful and very valuable. But to think it would get to where it was today? Of course not. And Steve wouldn’t have thought that, either.”
According to the Times, the trillion dollar marker makes Apple’s value equal to America’s four largest banks combined, or 111 S&P 500 companies. For comparison, media giant Viacom is worth some $11.8 billion, barely 10% of Apple.
While Chinese oil producer PetroChina surpassed $1,000,000,000,000 for a short period of time in 2007, that valuation is considered suspect as only two percent of the company’s shares were available for public trading. Although Apple currently holds the crown as the world’s richest corporation, a few of America’s other technology giants are quickly following suit, with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all currently valued at more than $800 billion.
On its journey to the world’s high-money mark, Apple has encountered a number of high-profile controversies, including questions about harsh working conditions at the company’s Chinese production facilities as well as time-sensitive internal triggers in products that slow capability to influence new purchases.
Still, with successful rollouts of three new iPhone models this year, and new products constantly in development, financial experts expect the Silicon Valley giant to continue its astronomical growth. According to CNN, Wall Street analysts at Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. predict Apple’s current spike could carry the company as high as $1.3 trillion in value.