The Apple worth one trillion dollars

Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo, Japon. © iStock/Getty.

In the late morning of Thursday, August 2, 2018, Apple made history when its share price hit US$207.05 on Wall Street, becoming the first company to ever be worth one trillion (10¹²) dollars. Not bad for a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy in the late 1990s, when its founder, Steve Jobs, stepped in to save it, and launched a series of products — the iMac, iPhone and iPad — that transformed the company and changed the world.

Over the last 12 months, Apple generated 255 billion dollars of revenue and 56 billion dollars in profits. It also posted six straight quarters of accelerated sales growth, thanks to the iPhone X, to services like the App Store, Apple Music and iCloud, and to its “wearables”, like the Apple Watch and AirPods. iPhone-related revenue was up by 20% over the last quarter, to almost 30 billion dollars, despite stagnant sales, reflecting the success of the iPhone X, a much more expensive device than its predecessors (US$999 and up). With a market capitalisation of US$884.01 billion dollars, Amazon is Apple’s closest rival, while Google Alphabet is third with US$854.86 billion, and Microsoft fourth, with US$827.53 billion dollars.

Remember Ronald Wayne, who cofounded Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. In 1976, he sold his 10% of shares to Jobs and Wozniak for US$800, then accepted US$1,500 to forfeit any claims against Apple (US$9,500 in today’s dollars). If Wayne had kept his 10% stake in Apple, he would now be worth 100 billion dollars, i.e. more than Bill Gates.

⇨ Recode, “It’s official: Apple is the first U.S. public company to reach a $1 trillion market value.”