Apple’s now valued $270bn more than Microsoft, $145bn more than Alphabet

While its latest quarterly figures were less than impressive, Apple’s persistent market growth remains undoubted.

The Cupertino-based technology company is the first in the United States to smash though the US$800-billion market cap barrier, sitting at US$802.8-billion at the time of writing.

That fatter market cap is primarily thanks to its strong performance during Tuesday’s trading, with shares gaining 0.6% in value to end the day at US$153. That number might not sound large, but multiply that by its 5.21-billion shares…

More impressively though is when the company hit this figure.

Apple’s US$800-billion market cap cements its place as the world’s valuable publicly-traded company

It comes at a tricky period for the company in terms of sales growth, and just a few days after the global availability of the Samsung Galaxy S8 — arguably one of the iPhone 7’s biggest rivals.

Investors though clearly believe that this is just a slight bump for the company. And they might be right. Apple is entering its annual golden period.

The next iPhone should launch in Q3 2017, with a slew of possible breakthrough features. Additionally, the company’s developer conference, WWDC, which also usually sees a fair bit of news on the services and software front, is scheduled for 5 June 2017.

Both events usually prop up Apple’s numbers, and at the very least, fuels the company’s hype culture.

But in terms of its title as the world’s most valuable publicly-traded company, its competition is still a fair way behind.

Google’s parent company Alphabet is currently valued at US$658-billion, while Microsoft in third, is valued around US$532-billion at the time of writing.