Apple becomes world's first private-sector company to reach $1 trillion market valuation
Market sentiment was also lifted by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross's comment, who said the tariffs that United States is threatening to impose on Chinese goods would not be disastrous for the Asian nation.
AppleInc became the first US $1trillionpublicly listed UScompany on Thursday, crowning a decade-long rise fueled by the ubiquitous iPhone that transformed it from a niche player in personal computers into a global powerhouse spanning entertainment and communications.
The tech company'sstockjumped 2.8 per cent to as high as US $207.05, bringing its gain to about 9 per cent since Tuesday when it reported June-quarter results above expectations and said it bought back US $20 billion of its own shares.
Started in the garage of co-founder Steve Jobs in 1976,Applehas 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'sstockmarketvalue is greater than the combined capitalization of Exxon Mobil, Procter & Gamble and AT&T. It now accounts for 4 per cent of the S&P 500.
One of three founders, Jobs was driven out ofApplein 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" fromApple's name and super-charging the cellphone industry, catching Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp, Samsung Electronics and Nokia off guard. That putAppleon a path to overtake Exxon Mobil in 2011 as the largest UScompany bymarket value.
The Silicon Valley stalwart'sstockhas surged more than 50,000 per cent since its 1980 initial public offering, dwarfing the S&P 500's approximately 2,000-percent increase during the same almost four decades.
During that time,Appleevolved 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,Applegenerated less than US $20 billion in sales and net profit just shy of US $2 billion. By last year, its sales had grown more than 11-fold to US $229 billion - the fourth highest in the S&P 500 - and net income had mushroomed at twice that rate to US $48.4 billion, making it the most profitable publicly-listed UScompany.
One of five UScompanies since the 1980s to take a turn as Wall Street's largest company by marketcapitalization,Applecould lose its lead to the likes of Alphabet Inc or Amazon.com Inc if it does not find a major new product or service as demand for smartphones loses steam.