Apple hits $1 trillion stock market, declared world's most powerful company

New Delhi : Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc has reached the first $1 trillion publicly listed U.S. company on Thursday, Founded in the year 1976, the company has started its journey as an smash-hit iPhone maker and later became niche player in personal computers into a global powerhouse spanning entertainment and communications. 

Apple’s stock jumped 2.8 percent to as high as $207.05, bringing its profit to about 9 percent since Tuesday when it reported June-quarter results above expectations and said it bought back $20 billion of its own shares. 

Started in the garage in 1976 and struggling for almost four decades later, Apple is now the first U.S. corporation to attain a market value of $1 trillion and probably one of the world’s most powerful and recognizable companies. The tech company has pushed its revenue beyond the economic outputs of Portugal, New Zealand and other countries. 

In 2006, just before the iPhone launch, Apple generated less than $20 billion in sales and net profit just shy of $2 billion. By last year, its sales had grown more than 11-fold to $229 billion - the fourth highest in the S&P 500 - and net income had mushroomed at twice that rate to $48.4 billion, making it the most profitable publicly-listed U.S. company. 

Currently, Apple has attained such a remarkable financial position that it can afford to buy three developing nations equivalent to Pakistan. In terms of share market and profit margin, Apple is now ranked top in the world, following Amazon and Google in the second and third position.