During intraday trade on Monday, Apple temporarily surpassed the $3 trillion market worth threshold, before quickly falling below it. When Apple’s stock price reached $182.86, it broke the barrier.
On Monday, Apple climbed 2.5 percent to $182.01, narrowly missing completing the trading day at $3 trillion.
The achievement is primarily symbolic, but it demonstrates that investors continue to believe in Apple’s growth potential. Apple’s market worth has tripled in less than four years, to $3 trillion. Analysts believe there is lots of room for growth.
Apple’s fourth-quarter earnings showed annual growth across all product categories, with revenue climbing 29% year over year.
While the iPhone remains Apple’s most profitable product, the company’s services division increased 25.6 percent year over year and generated more than $18 billion in revenue during the quarter.
Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty, for example, boosted the firm’s price target on Apple from $164 to $200 in December, while maintaining a buy rating, noting that new items like virtual reality and augmented reality headsets aren’t yet baked into the stock price.
Huberty also predicted that Apple’s App Store sales will exceed Morgan Stanley’s expectations for the quarter, and that Apple will sell 83 million handsets in the December quarter, 3 million more than expected.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of TFI Asset Management Limited, Apple sold 27 million pairs of its newest AirPods model over the holidays, delivering 20 percent year-over-year growth for Apple’s wearables business during the quarter.
The mark is a “watershed moment,” according to Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, but there is still room for growth, especially given Ives values Apple’s services division at $1.5 trillion.
Apple’s robust balance sheet and prodigious cash flow, which it uses to invest in new products, stock buybacks, and return capital to shareholders through dividends, made it a safe haven for investors throughout recent market volatility.
On Aug. 2, 2018, Apple became the first publicly listed US firm to reach a $1 trillion market cap during intraday trading. On Aug. 19, 2020, it was valued at $2 trillion, just over two years later.
Apple’s competition isn’t far behind. Microsoft is valued at $2.5 trillion, Amazon is valued at $1.75 trillion, and Google is valued at slightly under $2 trillion.
In 2021, Apple’s stock increased by 34%.
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