Apple becomes world’s first $3 trillion company By Paul R. La Monica,

Apple has reached yet another major milestone. The iPhone maker topped a market value of $3 trillion on Monday January 3rd — the first publicly traded company ever to be worth that much.

Shares of Apple (AAPL) were briefly up about 3% to a new all-time high of $182.88, surpassing the $182.85 per share it needed to be worth $3 trillion. The stock later pulled back from that level. Apple’s market value first crossed the $1 trillion threshold in August 2018 and passed $2 trillion in August 2020.

Apple shares were up nearly 35% in 2021. The company has benefited from booming demand for its new IPhone 13 and other older models as well as subscription services such as Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud and its popular App Store.Sales surged nearly 30% to more than $83 billion in Apple’s fall quarter, which ended in September. The company has a whopping $191 billion in cash as well.

But before long, Apple may have some company in the $3 trillion club. Microsoft (MSFT) is now worth about $2.5 trillion and Google owner Alphabet’s (GOOGL) market value is right around $2 trillion. Still giant but further behind are Amazon (AMZN), which has a market cap of $1.7 trillion, and Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA), worth about $1.2 trillion.

By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business