As anticipation for the iPhone 5 continues, Apple has become the most valuable company of all time by surpassing Microsoft’s market cap record.
Last week, AAPL closed at an all-time high of $636.34 per share, which was then bested by share prices of $644. Today, the company made history by having its stock trading at $665. The iOS firm has an accumulative of 937.41 million shares outstanding, consequently resulting in a valuation of $623.05 billion. The figure makes Apple the most valuable company ever in terms of publicly-traded firms.
Microsoft held the previous record for the highest market cap since 1999. MacRumors explains:
Microsoft’s market capitalization peaked on December 30, 1999, reaching an intraday high of $119.94 per share. With Microsoft having documented 5,160,024,593 outstanding shares as of October 31, 1999 in its quarterly earnings report, the company would have had a market capitalization of $618.89 billion on December 30.
The iPhone by itself has recently made more revenue than the whole of Microsoft.
Following the iPhone 5′s impending launch, Apple is expected to become the first company in history to be valued at over $1 trillion.