Apple Hits a $2 Trillion Market Cap
Just two years after it became the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion valuation by market capitalization, Apple is now worth $2 trillion and is the world’s most valuable company.
As The New York Times noted, it took Apple 42 years to reach $1 trillion in market cap. But it only took the firm 2 years to double that value and hit $2 trillion.
Of course, this success has come during a time that has damaged much of the rest of the economy in ways that will have a lasting impact: Like other Big Tech firms, Apple has benefitted greatly from the misery caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, all of Apple’s most recent $1 trillion in gains have come during the pandemic, and the firm’s value has risen an average of $6.8 billion every single day during the pandemic.
And no, Apple isn’t alone: While the global economy has imploded during the pandemic, setting records of the wrong kind, the collective value of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft has soared by $3 trillion during the pandemic. These five firms are now worth more than the next 50 biggest companies combined.
Apple is the second company in the world to reach a $2 trillion valuation: The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) first hit that milestone in December 2019. But unlike Apple, Saudi Aramco has been hit by the pandemic because its business is based on fossil fuels and relatively few people are commuting, let alone traveling, this year. But Saudi Aramco is still worth about $1.8 trillion.