Apple Is Worth $2 Trillion Now, the Most Valuable U.S. Company Ever
After constant speculations, it has finally happened. Apple (AAPL) has become the first ever American company to be worth a scarcely believable $2 trillion. The maker of some of the most premium digital products such as the iPhone and MacBook laptops, Apple reached this historic milestone after its stock price climbed up to $467.77 on Wednesday. This resulted in Apple having the largest market cap of any American company in history.
Apple crossed the $1 trillion mark in 2018 and had reached $1.5 trillion earlier this year in June. Apple was the first American company to be worth over $1 trillion. Since then, Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) have also joined the $1 trillion club. Coincidentally, they are both valued at over $1.5 trillion now. But Apple has made the next leap and opened the $2 trillion club for itself.
Apple’s rise to the top has been chiefly driven by the sales of the iPhone. Since the iPhone was launched in 2007 by founder and incumbent CEO Steve Jobs, Apple has never looked back in the smartphone market. However, Apple has also shown a penchant for changing with the times and adapt as per the market. With smartphone sales growth declining, Apple has also made a hard push in the Services and Wearables sector. The tech giant launched Apple Music and Apple TV+. It also introduced the Apple Watch and the now ubiquitous Airpods. Just based on the massive sales and popularity of those two devices, Apple has become one of the top wearables makers in the world.
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Apple’s future growth
Even though Apple is worth a staggering $2 trillion, analysts are still predicting an upward trajectory for the tech giant. Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said: “Look, I think this is a monumental achievement for Apple, especially as many of the doubters thought the growth story at Cupertino was over years ago, I think it all comes down to the install base. The company has an unmatched install base, which now further monetization of that through services has been the key to success.”
The next version of Apple’s iconic smartphone, the iPhone 12 is due to be launched later this fall. The launch will be a little delayed because of the COVID-19 epidemic (the normal launch window is in September). However, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives expects it to launch a sales “supercycle”, a phenomenon which will result in an increased number of people buying the iPhone 12.
The iPhone 12 has been touted as the first ever Apple phone to come equipped with 5G capabilities. The 5G technology promises to deliver far superior download/upload speeds when compared to the existing 4G LTE connections. The 5G switch is bound to make all those iPhone owners who have been sticking to their previous generation phones, to finally upgrade to Apple’s latest offering.
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Apple has also been working towards implementing some structural changes to its products in order to increase its margins. One of the examples of that is the in house team working on developing its own processors for the Mac line of products. This will lead to an end to their long standing dependence on Intel for processors.
Aside from enhancing its margins, Apple might be able to offer better and more exclusive power and performance to its users with the help of its own processors.
However, Apple’s business practices have brought it under hot water recently. It’s facing investigations by a coalition of state attorneys general, the Department of Justice, and the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law. The investigation aims to find out if the current App Store policies are creating an illegal monopoly for Apple.
The most recent controversy was when “Fortnite” maker Epic Games called out Apple over the staggeringly high 30% commissions on the App Store.
While the investigations haven’t really yielded any solid outcome, it is highly unlikely that they will be able to slow down Apple’s constant rise. The tech giant is bound to keep growing in the near (and most probably distant) future.
