Five Myths About Apple
Even after the rise of Google and Facebook, Apple remains the most closely watched technology company of them all. From the Apple II's debut in 1977 through the iPhone - the 21st century's defining gadget, which took Apple to profitable new heights - sceptics and hyper-loyal fans have tracked its every move. It shouldn't shock anyone, then, that Apple has always generated an unusually high volume of misunderstandings masquerading as common knowledge.
Apple achieved a historic feat when it hit a value of $1 trillion (roughly Rs. 74 lakh crores) in August. To many observers, that made it "the most valuable company of all time."
But Apple's milestone was specific to market capitalisation on a US stock exchange. Eleven years before, PetroChina - the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company - briefly hit $1.2 trillion on its opening day on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. (It subsequently spiralled into what Bloomberg News called "the biggest stock collapse in world history.") Another state-owned petroleum behemoth, Saudi Arabia's Aramco (which plans to hold an IPO by 2021 at a valuation of up to $2 trillion), is worth $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion today, according to most analysts' estimates.
At any rate, a trillion dollars isn't what it used to be. Adjusting for inflation, as the Motley Fool's Alex Planeshas pointed out, centuries-old shipping conglomerates make Apple look downright dinky. The value of the Dutch East India Company peaked at more than $7 trillion in modern dollars during the "tulip mania" bubble in the 17th century.
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