Apple Becomes World's Most Valuable Company

For a few hours yesterday and again today, Apple Inc. surpassed Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable company, as analysts have been speculating would happen for several days. Exxon ended Tuesday back on top but fell behind Apple again today. Apple’s unseating of Exxon, which has long held the top spot, has sparked much dialogue about Apple’s continued success. Last year, Apple overtook Microsoft as top tech company.

At trading’s close yesterday, Apple shares were up 5.89 percent to $374.01, translating to a market valuation of $346.74 billion. Exxon Mobil’s closing market valuation was $348.32 billion, just $1.58 billion more than Apple’s, with shares up 2.07 percent to $71.64. During trading on Tuesday, Apple’s market cap exceeded Exxon’s by as much as $7 billon. Today, Apple’s market cap has again overtaken Exxon’s—by $3.67 billion as of early afternoon—although both companies’ market caps are down from yesterday.

Coupled with the excitement of Apple vying with Exxon for the title of most valuable company is speculation that Apple could be the first company worth $1 trillion. The popularity of Apple’s iPad and iPhone has been widely touted as key to the company’s recent excellent performance in the market—as Michael reported last week, iPhone was the best-selling smartphone globally in the second quarter of this year. We’ll continue to report on this story, and are interested to hear what you see as the reasons for Apple’s success.

Update 8/11/11: At the close of trading on Wednesday, Apple retained the title of the world’s most valuable company with a market value of $337 billion, while Exxon’s closing market value was $331 billion.