Apple is continuing its run toward $1 trillion today, as a huge fiscal fourth quarter sent the stock to new highs and helped its market cap briefly hit $900 billion — though it’s since leveled off just a bit and is now resting just a hair below that.
Apple was able to beat across the board what Wall Street expected from it for the fourth quarter, as well as its own expectations. You can find the full financial guts in our other story, but the big thing here is that ever since the third quarter, Apple has been setting itself up for a run that would make it a $1 trillion company. After a huge year thus far, Apple is looking to spark a new wave of consumers to buy the iPhone X and its accompanying products, like the AirPods, iPad or HomePod, to get the most use out of it.
That’s propelled the stock to new heights. Here’s the chart:
Hitting a $1 trillion market cap is, of course, mostly symbolic. But after 2016’s year-long narrative that Apple’s core growth engine had stalled, the huge demand for the iPhone X and the on-schedule release of the iPhone 8 is a welcome sign to Wall Street and Apple itself. Apple has shown that it isn’t just going to ride the wave of its last big leap — the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — and is looking to unlock new consumer demand.
It has to not only unlock that demand in the U.S. but also abroad, as the company said 62 percent of its revenue came from international sales. Apple has to pin down demand in markets like Greater China if it’s going to create a new spark for its growth engine, and it did demonstrate a significant leap in that area with a 12 percent jump in revenue year-over-year in China and nearly $10 billion in revenue.