I Apple’s Road To A $3 Trillion Valuation

Technology

Apple’s Road To A $3 Trillion Valuation

Apple’s market capitalization hit $3 trillion on January 3, 2022, making it the first company ever to break this record. According to World Bank estimates, the tech titan’s value is greater than the $2.76 trillion GDP of the U.K. but still short of the $3.85 trillion GDP of Germany. Here’s a glance at the rise of Apple’s market cap over the last decade.

2011

Apple first inched into record territory when it became the most valuable stock in the world in 2011. At the time, Apple’s valuation stood just under $340 billion. It was also the year that cofounder Steve Jobs announced his resignation from his CEO role, which was filled by Tim Cook. Despite facing competition from rivals using Google’s Android smartphone operating system, the iPhone-maker’s roughly $337 billion market cap in August matched that of the 32 largest publicly-traded European banks combined. As per UBS analyst Maynard Um, Apple’s market cap rose by $191 billion from 2007 to mid-2011.

2012

Apple reached a $600 billion valuation in April 2012—over $100 billion more than Microsoft and IBM combined at the time. By August, it hit over $620 billion, becoming the most valuable company in history in terms of market cap, buoyed by rumors surrounding the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini.

2017

At the end of 2017, Apple’s market cap stood at about $900 billion. In December 2017, the company announced that it planned to no longer maintain its cash pile and instead aimed to return the money to investors over time. The move was enabled by the introduction of a new tax law that allowed Apple to move the majority of its cash from overseas.

2018

Buoyed by the growing popularity of the iPhone, Apple became the first American company to reach a $1 trillion valuation in mid-2018, an achievement that took 42 years. Between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018, the firm’s buyback pace ramped up, from $33 billion to $73 billion.

2020

The shift towards remote work and e-commerce accelerated Apple’s growth amid the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. It became the first American firm to touch the $2 trillion milestone in August, doubling its valuation in two years. At $2 trillion, Apple’s valuation was higher than the GDP of Brazil, Canada, Italy, Russia, and South Korea.

2021

The tech giant spent $86 billion on repurchasing shares and $14.5 billion on dividends in its fiscal 2021, which concluded in September. Between March 2012 to mid-2021, Apple spent over $467 billion on buybacks, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence—more than that of Alphabet, Bank of America, Oracle, and Meta. CEO Tim Cook took home a compensation package of $98.7 million in 2021 with a $3 million base pay, according to an SEC filing— six times more than what he received a year earlier.