Apple becomes just second company to reach $2T value

Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Apple became the first U.S. company in history to reach a market cap of $2 trillion on Wednesday, doubling its valuation over the last two years.

The company reached the mark in trading Wednesday, when it reached an all-time high of $467.84 per share.

The tech giant passed oil kingpin Saudi Aramco in July as the world's most valuable publicly-traded company. Aramco saw its $2 trillion market cap in December and is the only other publicly traded company to reach the mark.

Apple reached the $1 trillion mark in 2018 and it continues to outpace competitors like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which also have market caps exceeding $1 trillion.

Market capitalization refers to the overall value of a public company's outstanding shares of stock.

The historic mark speaks well of Apple's decision years ago to expand from a smartphone hardware company into the market for wearable devices, digital entertainment like Apple TV and financial services.

"When a new user starts to use Apple's smartphones, it tends to stay on Apple's smartphones," Jeriel Ong, an equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank, told Business Insider. "Apple tends to be stickier and that tends to be valued more."