Apple shares hit an historic $300 milestone Thursday, representing a new overall all-time high. The amazing figure gives Apple a market cap of $1.3 trillion. That takes Apple a whole lot closer to the once crazy dream of being valued at a whopping $2 trillion.
New Year’s Resolutions for Tim Cook, anyone?
Apple breaking financial records isn’t exactly unprecedented. In 2015, Apple became the world’s first $700 billion public company. Two years later, it broke records as the first $800 billion public company in history. Then, just a few months after that, its stock price increased enough to make it worth $900 billion overall. Finally, in 2018, Apple became a $1 trillion company. In doing so, it beat out all the other tech giants competing for the same record. (The race was pretty tight, too. Both Amazon and Microsoft followed in quick succession.)
So when does Apple become worth $2 trillion then? There’s still quite a climb, of course. Apple was hovering around the $300 billion mark back in 2011. It took the best part of a decade to climb from there to $1 trillion. So will jumping from $1.3 trillion to $2 trillion take the same amount of time?
Not if analysts are correct. In 2019, Apple had its best year in a decade. Apple’s share price surged more than 80% in value. The fact that it did so well at a tough time was impressive. 2019 was the year in which China and the US had their trade standoff. The year started with Apple having to negatively revise its own earnings expectations after the iPhone underperformed in China. It managed to turn all of this around.
By comparison, 2020 looks to be shaping up to be a great year. Wearables sales are booming. Services are on the rise. And the likelihood of a 5G iPhone could make for Apple’s most popular iPhone refresh in years.
Analyst Gene Munster recently predicted Apple would be a “$350 or $400 stock” in 2020. If Apple was able to add another $100 onto its stock price that would take it a whole lot further toward hitting that $2 trillion valuation.
This promises to be an exciting year for Cupertino!
