Apple’s market capitalization topped $500-billion in opening trading on Leap Day. This milestone follows Tuesday’s announcement that Apple will reveal the coveted iPad 3 in San Francisco next week.
This further strengthens Apple’s supremacy as the world’s most valuable company. The rise in value can also be attributed to blow-out holiday sales, and another major announcement; at a shareholder’s meeting last week, CEO Tim Cook said the company has “too much money,” raising investors’ hopes it might reinstate a dividend.
The company’s market capitalization rose to close-to $508-billion, as shares increased by $8.76, or 1.6 per cent, to $544.17.
Apple has not just reached a major corporate landmark only attained by six other companies, but the company itself is worth 15 times its earnings from last year.
Of course.
Apple has become the sixth company to join the $500 billion club, a temporary milestone also reached by Mobil Exxon, Microsoft Corp., General Electric Co., Intel Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc.
The iPad 3 will be unveiled on March 7 in San Francisco. Invitations to the event read, “We have something you really have to see. And touch.”
Though Apple has yet to confirm the product’s launch date for sale, last year, sales of the iPad 2 began in the U.S. nine days after its inaugural press event, also in March.
The iPad tablet series, which first launched in 2010, has sold more than 50 million units worldwide. This number is astronomical when compared to the RIM Playbook’s sales of barely 1 million.
Regardless of when the iPad 3 launches, the seemingly endless Apple hype has created nothing but gains for the company, and for apes too.
____
Joanna Adams writes the Morning Cable, and lots more (mostly about entertainment), for Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at †@nowstarringTO.
For more, follow us on Twitter at @TorontoStandard and subscribe to our newsletter.
