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Apple Now Worth Over Half a Trillion Dollars

Apple's market capitalization topped half a trillion dollars on Wednesday, an upward trend that has continued since last December.

February 29, 2012

Apple's market capitalization topped half a trillion dollars on Wednesday, an upward trend that has continued since last December.

At press time, Apple's market cap (the share price multiplied by the shares outstanding) stood at $507.7 billion, making it still the largest company in the world. Exxon Mobile ranks second, with a market cap of $409.11 billion as of Wednesday.

Apple's share price has risen steadily since Dec 20, when it stood at just under $396 per share. Since then it has climbed to where it stood at press time, or just over $544, an increase of 37 percent in just over two months.

Apple investors appear to be coasting on the momentum of Apple's fourth-quarter earnings, where the company . Apple sold a record number of iPhone 4S phones, and said that if not for a backlog of parts and the Chinese market, where Apple hasn't yet sold the iPhone 4S.

Apple also sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the same period a year ago.

From there, Apple investors can also look ahead to what is almost certainly the on March 7, with what is anticipated to be a higher-resolution display and possibly the addition of LTE connectivity.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu wrote Wednesday that he believes that the March 7 news will be "material," and will affect the stock price.

"As we have said before... our supply chain checks indicate that this iPad refresh will likely be a significant one with beefed up specs including a higher resolution screen, much faster processor, Siri software, and 4G LTE wireless. We believe a near-term refresh makes sense as the iPad has not had an update since March 2011."

Agee also said that he considered the addition of LTE to be significant, and affect both the iPad as well as the next-generation iPhone.

Disclosure: Mark Hachman does not directly own any stocks, including technology stocks, Apple, or its competitors.