On December 12, 1980, Apple’s stock market adventure began. Its stock market value is now 30,000 times greater than the original $100.4 million issue. With its profits, Apple could fund the Videotron Center…in a day. The Press had fun finding comparisons to better understand what the billions that revolve around Apple really represent.

It took a lot of imagination to predict that the computer maker that Apple was 43 years ago was going to be the first company in history to hit the $1 trillion milestone in 2018, $2 trillion in 2020, and then 3 trillion in 2023. On Friday, the company became the first in the world to hit the milestone when markets closed. This rise to the top, we illustrated it in animation, by compiling the five most important stock market valuations since 1980. Here is the result.

In 1980, the multinationals ExxonMobil, General Electric and Coca-Cola dominate. It is necessary to wait until 1998 to see a techno company durably at the controls, Microsoft. It was only in 2009, two years after the launch of the iPhone, that Apple appeared in the top 5 of stock market valuations, from which it took the lead in 2011 almost without interruption until today.

With a stock market value of US$2.759 billion as of May 26, 2023, the date used for our compilation, Apple is worth as much as all of the companies listed in the table below.

On the world stage, what would a market valuation of US$2.759 billion look like when juxtaposed against all the goods and services produced in a country in a year? Of course, we are comparing apples and oranges here, but the exercise is fun. Apple could enter the G8, nearly tied for gross domestic product with France, significantly outclassing Italy and Canada.

According to its latest annual report, Apple posted profits of US$99.8 billion (CDN133.4 billion) for the fiscal year ending September 24, 2022. At this rate, here’s how long Apple could fund the following projects or expenses… if the company finds it in their interest.