Apple becomes first company to reach $3 trillion market value

It’s official.

Shares of Apple Inc rose as much as 3 percent on Monday to trade at $182.88 – enough to secure the iPhone maker the coveted crown of becoming the first publically traded company on the planet to cross the $3 trillion market capitalization mark.

To put that into perspective, Apple’s value now surpasses the nominal gross domestic products (GDPs) of six of the world’s top 10 economies including the United Kingdom, India, France, Italy, Canada and South Korea.

Apple’s rise has been relentless in recent years. Back in August 2018, it became the first United States firm to surpass $1 trillion in market value. It blew past the $2 trillion mark only two years later in August 2020. And thanks to the turbo-charged pandemic appetite for tech shares, it took roughly 17 months for Apple to reach the $3 trillion mark.

Since January 2007, when the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone, shares of the Silicon Valley giant have gained 5,800 percent.

The $3 trillion milestone is largely symbolic and indeed, other tech heavyweights outperformed Apple last year. Microsoft and Tesla shares gained about 50 percent each in 2021. Alphabet shares soared 65 percent and chipmaker Nvidia 125 percent. By contrast, Apple stock gained 34 percent in 2021.

But Apple’s sheer size does mean it has an outsized influence over stock markets. It accounts for roughly 7 percent of the S&P 500 Index.