These are huge times for Apple with the phenomenal success of the iPhone 4S and the MacBook Air reflecting its dominance in the market. Today we have news about a record day for Apple with the fact that shares yesterday hit a 52-week high.
With the iPhone 5 coming later this year and the big reveal event for the iPad 3 officially announced for March 7, it does seem as though Apple is pretty unstoppable at the moment. After the date of the iPad 3 event was stated yesterday stock soared and in after-hours trading finally hit $536.39. This means that Apple’s total market capitalization, which had hit almost $500 billion at end of closing on Tuesday (up $9.65 or 1.84%) then hit a magical half a trillion dollar milestone and whichever way you look at it that’s nothing short of staggering.
To put that into perspective, Apple’s market cap figures had been very close to Exxon Mobile Corporation’s for some months but by yesterday afternoon Exxon was worth $411 billion, some $90 billion less than Apple as reported by Apple Insider. When Apple’s market cap went as high as $456 billion earlier this month that meant the company’s worth was as much as Microsoft and Google combined. Apple just seems to be bounding ahead of its rivals, especially since it reported its best ever quarter which covered the 2011 holiday season. In this period Apple sold 37 million iPhones among its other products, realizing earnings on those sales of $13.06 billion.
These astounding figures mean that Apple has doubled its market value in less than two years. On the other hand Microsoft’s market cap is now just over half of Apple’s whereas in 2010 the two companies were equal on around $222 billion. Despite Apple stock reaching $536.39 yesterday many analysts are predicting even greater things for the company. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has set a price target of $670 while other analysts are forecasting prices of between $600 and $650. You can see a video discussion about Apple’s record day yesterday below this story.
Heady times for Apple then and indeed its shareholders. What are your thoughts on the phenomenal success that Apple is seeing right now? If the iPad 3 or iPhone 5 don’t live up to expectations, do you think that would impact badly on Apple stock? Let us know with your comments please.