Update 11:49 a.m.: Now it’s official!
Update 11:35 a.m.: Apple’s stock app jumped the gun a bit based on inaccurate data from Yahoo. But man is it close.
If the best revenge is living well, then Tim Cook is sticking it to everyone. Apple’s stock passed another significant milestone today, becoming the first company in history to top a market capitalization of a trillion dollars, albeit briefly. That’s a one with 12 zeros.
Of course, it wasn’t always this rosy. On September 29, 2000, Apple’s stock dropped more than 50 percent, from $26 to $13, effectively cutting its market capitalization in half, to around 5 billion, and it didn’t look good for the Mac maker. At the time it was hard to see Apple recovering, but since that fateful day the stock has since split twice and soared to unimaginable levels.
IDGAAPL passed a trillion dollar market cap this morning.
To put its market cap in perspective, AAPL is worth two Facebooks, seven Netflixes, 42 Twitters, and 53 Dells. If you remember, Dell founder Michael Dell famously quipped in 1997 that he would “shut (Apple) down and give the money back to the shareholders.” He’s since walked back the statement by saying he would shut down any company that isn’t Dell, but it clearly inspired Steve Jobs, who had this to say at the time: “We are going to be second in logistics and operations and the buying experience, to no-one – including Dell.”
While that’s been true for a while now, AAPL’s milestone is a significant one. Not only is the iPhone still selling like hotcakes, Apple has also shown significant growth in its Services and wearables categories, two divisions that were virtually nonexistent just a few years ago.
Why this matters: In the scheme of things, it probably doesn’t. Apple will still release new iPhones, iPads, and Appel Watches in the fall, and iOS 13 will still arrive next year. But it’s incredible to witness a company that was nearly worthless just two decades years ago now be valued at over a trillion dollars.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.