Apple becomes the first trillion-dollar public company

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. 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. The company amassed profits of $11.5bn in three months, thanks to record sales that hit $53.3bn. While an American company had never been valued at $1 trillion, Apple is not the first in the world to cross this milestone – Chinese oil company PetroChina hit $1 trillion in 2007 and Privately held Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, was valued at $2 trillion by investors.