• Home
  • Contact Us
facebook
twitter
youtube
This week’s Cash Jackpot is $99! You can register at Weiss Electric & Plumbing Supply on Highway 9 South in Centre and The La Marina Restaurant at 105 Holman Street in Leesburg. Then, listen to WEIS Radio at 6:30 on Friday morning to see if your name is drawn. If it is, you will have 9 minutes and 90 seconds to call in to claim your prize of $99. The number to call is 256-927-4232!
Text NEWS1 to 77000 to receive News Alerts from WEIS Radio!
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @weisradio!
WEIS 100.5 FM & 990 AM, Southern, Country, and American Proud!
  • HOME
  • Today’s Info
    • Obituaries
    • Trading Post
    • Community Calendar
    • Church News
    • Yard Sales
    • Contest Winners
    • Weiss Lake Area Fishing
    • Georgia Lottery
  • News
    • Local News
    • Area News
    • National News
    • World News
    • Political News
    • Business News
    • Health News
    • Church News
    • Community News
  • Sports
    • Local Sports
    • End Zone Show
    • High School Football Broadcast Schedule
    • WEIS Prep Scoreboard
    • High School Basketball Broadcast Schedule
    • Weiss Lake Area Fishing
    • National Sports
    • Auburn Tigers
      • Auburn Football
      • Auburn Men’s Basketball
    • Alabama Crimson Tide
      • Alabama Football
      • Alabama Men’s Basketball
  • Weather
    • Weather Center
    • 7-Day Forecast
    • Regional Radar Loop
    • National Weather Service
  • Entertainment
    • Entertainment News
    • Country Music News
    • Southern Gospel News
    • Billboard.com Hot Country Charts
  • Listen Live
  • About Us
    • Station Info
    • Staff Directory
    • Contact Us
    • FCC Public Inspection File

How Apple became the first American publicly traded company to reach $1 trillion valuation

02 Aug 2018
ABC News Radio
Off
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — A company that started in a garage more than four decades ago became the first American publicly traded company to reach a $1 trillion valuation.

Shares hit $207.05 midday Thursday to crack the historic milestone. There have been expectations in the past that the company’s value would hit this level, but the path has been far from certain.

In April, Apple’s stock hovered in the $160-$170 range amid worries of lowered demand for iPhones, Apple’s flagship product that accounts for over 60 percent of its revenue.

Earlier this week, the company released its third-quarter earnings report. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, it was “Apple’s best June quarter ever and our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth.” Revenue increased 17 percent to $53.3 billion.

Apple’s software and services revenue, including the App Store, which recently turned 10 years old on July 10, along with Apple Music and cloud services, jumped 31 percent year-over-year. So far this year, Apple has sold 134.54 million iPhones.

“It’s simply a testimony to how they’ve become a fabric of our lives, and it’s also a testimony to Steve Jobs’ vision,” says analyst Gene Munster.

Apple was founded in a Silicon Valley garage by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and their friend Ronald Wayne in 1976. Apple had its initial public offering on Dec. 12, 1980.

As for what Jobs would say of Apple’s valuation, Munster says, “he’d be very proud of what he had helped build. … He would’ve come in the next day and said, ‘How are we going to make beautiful products?’ I don’t think it would change anything.”

With this historic valuation, Apple beats its closest market cap-competitor Amazon in the race to $1 trillion. This valuation makes Apple more valuable than the GDP of all but 26 countries, according to data from the CIA Factbook.

Apple was famously led for years by its visionary co-founder Steve Jobs. Apple’s first product, all hand-built by Wozniak, was the Apple-1, basically a DIY computer without a case. After securing funding and getting the iconic Apple logo designed, they continued to make products like the Macintosh, the company’s first mass-market computer. The ad that announced it, “1984,” is considered one of the greatest ads of all time.

“It didn’t just change Apple, it changed the whole computer industry,” Jobs said of the Macintosh in 2007.

Not long after the success of the Macintosh, Jobs clashed with then-CEO John Sculley, arguing that the company should focus more on the consumer when developing products. According to Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography, Jobs was “frequently obnoxious, rude, selfish, and nasty to other people,” which the “polite to a fault” Sculley disliked. A boardroom battle resulted in Jobs’ resignation from the company, and Apple began to falter. But when Apple bought NeXT in 1997, the company Jobs worked on in his absence from Apple, he returned to the company he co-founded and helped it restructure.

The company then began to rebrand, releasing the iMac in 1998 and the “clamshell” iBook in 1999, both in multiple bright colors in contrast to the beige computers of the day. The iMac returned Apple to profitability after the brink of bankruptcy. Mac computers enjoyed continued success with the popular MacBook’s debut in 2006.

Jobs was a cult of personality synonymous with Apple Inc. With his trademark uniform of a black turtleneck, blue jeans, and New Balance sneakers, he captivated keynote address audiences with his proclamations of the magnificence of new Apple products.

Jobs’ biggest consumer devices were the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, released in 2001, 2007, and 2010, respectively. While they weren’t the first music player, smartphone or tablet on the market, they embodied Jobs’ famous mantra, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them,” and revolutionized their respective product categories.

The iPod changed how people listen to and buy music, the iPhone changed how we communicate with others, and the iPad changed what it meant to have a computer in your hands.

“Right there, holding the internet in your hands — it’s an incredible experience,” Jobs said at the iPad’s announcement.

Tim Cook became CEO just six weeks before Jobs passed away on Oct. 5, 2011.

Jobs told consumers what they wanted, but Cook made sure it got to the consumer as efficiently as possible. Prior to being named CEO, he developed a reputation as a whiz in efficiency as Chief Operating Officer. Under his leadership, the iPhone has been persistently popular around the world, reaching over 1.4 billion units sold. Apple services like the App Store and Apple Music have grown consistently, and consumers have been taking to new products like the Apple Watch, which debuted in 2015 and has made Apple the biggest watchmaker in the world by revenue, according to research firm Asymco.

“Tim Cook is an ideal example of sticking to what you believe in rather than listening to the masses,” says Munster. “Being hyper-focused on the details and making products and services relentlessly better versus drifting and being distracted by other things defines Tim Cook’s genius.”

The historic valuation Apple reached Thursday is a culmination of the “Think Different” motto of its 1997 ad campaign featuring the famous “Crazy Ones” ad. It’s black-and-white footage of 17 iconic 20th century personalities like Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr. began with, “Here’s to the crazy ones,” and ended saying, “while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

About the Author
WEIS Radio App Apple App Store Googe Play Store
banner

Facebook

Facebook

Twitter

Tweets by weisradio

Recent Posts

  • ‘Dossier’ author Chris Steele refutes key points in DOJ watchdog report on Russia probe
  • Trump blasts impeachment at Pennsylvania rally hours after Democrats unveil charges
  • Georgia councilman’s defiant opposition to interracial marriage leads to his resignation
  • School/Business Delays For Wednesday
  • DOD suspends flight training for all Saudi students in wake of Pensacola shooting
  • Senate likely to take up impeachment trial after holiday recess, McConnell says
  • Bloomberg rolling out fresh TV ad batch amid record buys topping $100 million
  • Officer, 3 civilians dead after massive gun battle breaks out in New Jersey
  • John Boyega says ‘Hold Back the Stars’ wasn’t “black” enough for him and Letitia Wright
  • Missing 11 Year Old Boaz Boy Found Safe, Suspect Taken Into Custody in Collinsville

Sections

  • Area News
  • Church News
  • Community Calendar
  • Country Music News
  • Entertainment News
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Local Sports
  • National News
  • National Sports
  • Obituaries
  • Southern Gospel News
  • Weather Center
  • World News

More on WEIS Radio

  • 7-Day Forecast
  • Alabama Crimson Tide Football
  • Alabama Crimson Tide Men’s Basketball
  • Auburn Tigers Football
  • Auburn Tigers Men’s Basketball
  • Contest Winners
  • End Zone Show
  • Slideshow Landing Page
  • Trading Post
  • WEIS Prep Scoreboard
  • Weiss Lake Area Fishing
  • Yard Sales

About Us

  • Contact Us
  • Staff Directory
  • Station Info

Archives

Follow Us

facebook
twitter
youtube
© 2019 Baker Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.