Apple becomes world's first trillion-dollar company

[Arthur]

Source: The Guardian

 

Apple became the world’s first trillion-dollar public company on Thursday, as a rise in its share price pushed it past the landmark valuation.

 

The iMac to iPhone company, co-founded to sell personal computers by the late Steve Jobs in 1976, reached the historic milestone as its shares hit $207.05, the day after it posted strong financial results. Apple’s share price has grown 2,000% since Tim Cook replaced Jobs as chief executive in 2011.

 

The company hit a $1tn market capitalisation 42 years after Apple was founded and 117 years after US Steel became the first company to be valued at $1bn in 1901.

 

It means Apple’s stock market value is more than a third the size of the UK economy and larger than the economies of Turkey and Switzerland.

 

While energy company PetroChina was cited as the world’s first trillion-dollar company after its 2007 flotation, the valuation is considered unreliable because only 2% of the company was released for public trading.

 

Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Aramco could be worth up to $2tn upon its planned stock market float but the value is yet to be tested.

 

This week’s rise in Apple’s share price was powered by quarterly financial results released on Tuesday that were better than Wall Street had expected.

 

The tech giant racked up profits of $11.5bn in three months on the back of record sales that hit $53.3bn, pushing shares of the iPhone giant higher and easing the value of the company up from $935bn towards $1tn (£770bn).

 

“Growth was strong all around the world,” Apple’s finance chief, Luca Maestri, said.

 

The company is sitting on a $285bn mountain of cash reserves and made a net profit of $48.5bn in 2017, its last set of full-year results.

 

And yet despite all of their mountains of cash, Apple can't be arsed to update most of their Macs!

 

Apple Sold Fewest Macs in Any Quarter Since 2010 as Nearly Entire Lineup Was Outdated

 

Apple on Tuesday reported that it sold 3.72 million Macs in its third quarter, which spanned 1 April through 30 June, the fewest in any single quarter since it sold 3.47 million in the third quarter of 2010.

 

It's also the first time Apple has sold fewer than four million Macs in a quarter since the third quarter of 2013, a span of five years.

 

Apple reported sales of 4.29 million Macs in the same quarter a year ago, so this is a pretty significant 13 percent decline on a year-over-year basis. Mac revenue also dropped five percent over the year-ago quarter.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Arthur

[ShellfishClive]

Wonder how they managed that when everything they sell is so cheap. /s

[2ilent8cho]

I dont think the Mac Sales are much to be worried about. If you compare Q1 to Q3 2017 to Q1 to Q3 2018 https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ We have 13.8 Million Mac's sold in 2017 Q1-3 and in 2018 Q1-3 12.9 Million. Considering the Macbook Pro was only just refreshed, and the Mac Mini has not been refreshed for years i dont think its bad. Especially when Apple said 60% of those 3.6 Million Mac's sold were to customers who had not had a Mac before (guessing they use the Apple ID to tell) the Mac base is growing. Its really hard to justify for me to buy a new Macbook when i have 3 in total and my 2012 Macbook air still runs very quick and fast with decent battery life still.

[6Foot2]

Link: Daily Cartoon: Friday, August 3^rd [The New Yorker]