Apple Is First US Company To Reach $1.5T Market Cap

It took almost two years for Daniel Ives’ forecast to be on the money.

On Wednesday (June 10), Apple stock climbed 2 percent to $352 a share, making the tech giant the first U.S. company to reach a $1.52 trillion market capitalization, 9to5Mac reported. 

Last week, Apple inched closer to the all-time high market cap when its stock sold at $326 a share. On Tuesday (June 9), it rose $10.53, or 3.16 percent, hitting $343.99 per share.

In 2018, Ives, a software and technology analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, said Apple was on its way to set a U.S. record, the Business Insider reported.

“Apple’s valuation can approach the $1.5 trillion level based on our analysis of the monetization potential of its unparalleled consumer-installed base over the coming years, coupled by further multiple expansion around the services business,” Ives said in a note to clients in October 2018.

Market capitalization is the share price multiplied by the number of outstanding shares of the company’s stock, which yields the company’s overall stock market value.

Apple’s stocks suffered in early 2020 from a combination of factors, including store closures, travel limits and suppliers’ inability to deliver products. Its shares fell to a low of $229 in March.

But despite a bumpy start to the year, tech stocks have done well during the global health crisis, MacRumors reported. 

Demand for new devices soared as shelter-in-place orders from the nation’s governors had millions of Americans working from home, and Apple’s share price surged in April.

The good news for Apple comes as it prepares to shift from using Intel processors to using its own ARM-based chips, which it plans to introduce later this month at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, The Verge reported. The ARM processor is smaller, less complex and consumes less power, making it suitable for increasingly miniaturized devices.