Apple Inc. marked a stunning jump on Monday as it briefly became the first firm to top the $3.00 trillion threshold in market value.
Investors pushed the tech powerhouse well over 2.00% above its closing price on New Year’s Eve to an intraday high of $182.88.
The iPhone maker touched the milestone on the first trading day of 2022, just over one year after crossing the $2.00 trillion mark.
The company highly benefited from the pandemic as traders bet consumers will continue to shell out top dollar for tech gadgets.
Additionally, analysts believed that Apple sold over 40 million iPhones during the holiday period surmounting the persisting chip shortages.
They also added that China, the world’s largest smartphone market, remains a significant source of strength for the business.
Consequently, Apple continued to lead for the second straight month in the Chinese market, beating local competitors Vivo and Xiaomi.
However, Apple ended the session with a gain of 2.50% or 4.44 to $182.01, easing to a value of $2.99 trillion.
Still, its stock price surged up to 5,800% since it launched the first iPhone in January 2007.
It now shares the $2.00 trillion mark value with Microsoft Corporation, which is worth about $2.51 trillion.
Subsequently, Alphabet Inc. is currently valued at $1.92 trillion, as Amazon Inc has $1.73 trillion.
Apple’s Rise Benefits from Massive Share Buybacks
The stellar climb of the iPhone maker also reflected the power of the company’s capital return program.
In the past years, Apple was the biggest repurchaser of its own shares in the S&P 500 index.
Correspondingly, the tech giant spent $85.50 billion to buyback shares and $14.50 billion on dividends in its fiscal year 2021.
It places more budget on repurchasing its stocks than other companies like Meta Platforms, formerly named Facebook, and Alphabet.
Accordingly, share buybacks significantly bolstered the firm’s stock price by decreasing the supply of shares in the market. This move effectively returned the money to investors.
