Apple becomes a trillion-dollar company 

Apple has made history this week as the first ever trillion-dollar public company – beating out its main rival Amazon to reach that milestone. The news came after Apple also announced its third quarter earnings had set a record earlier this week. Those figures showed a 32% growth in profit year on year to $11.5bn. Sales totalled $53.3bn the company said, which makes for a 17% increase compared with Q3 last year.

The landmark $1 trillion-dollar marker was helped in no small part by sales of the iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple says that it moved 41.3 million new iPhones in the period June – August while it also encountered a strong demand for its wearables and other services, such as ear buds and gaming.

The Apple Story

As an app developer, you almost certainly have an iPhone and will likely frequently design apps for the iPhone and iPad. However, did you know that Apple’s story began quite a way before the iPhone launched and changed the face of mobile devices forever?

It’s actually taken Apple just 42 years to become the first ever $1 trillion-dollar company, after being founded by Steve Jobs in 1976. Back then. Apple was synonymous with computing but it’s arguable that is still the case today thanks to the overwhelming success of the iPhone and iPad.

The first ever iPhone was released in June 2007. Five years later in September 2015, the iPhone 5 was released, selling millions of units worldwide in just three days. From there, Apple’s phone and tablet business has gone from strength to strength – fuelling the launch of the App Store and the worldwide app industry.

More than 1.2 billion iPhones have been sold in total, making it the largest app market place in the world.

The App Store

With Apple saying its ‘other products’ such as gaming make a significant impact on its bottom line, it should come as no surprise to hear that the App Store has grown massively in recent years. First opened in 2008, one year after the first ever iPhone hit stores, the app distribution platform started with a grand total of 500 apps. By 2017, that figure had swelled to more than two million apps across a multitude of categories and created by app developers from almost every corner of the world.

The store was given a new look last year but with Apple now a trillion dollar company, you can expect much more to come.