Riding on strong quarter results despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple has surpassed Saudi Aramco to become the world's most valuable company with a market cap of $1.84 trillion. The strong earnings report helped Apple shares close up 10.47% on Friday to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company, surpassing the largest oil producer, reports CNBC.
Saudi Aramco now trails at $1.76 trillion.
Despite the pandemic that hit its supply chain and forced the iPhone maker to close retail stores worldwide, Apple shares are up more than 44% this year.
Apple has posted $59.7 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2020 third quarter that ended June 27, an increase of 11% from the year-ago quarter, as iPhone sales beat the Wall Street estimates.
Apple's board of directors has also approved a four-for-one stock split, effective from August 31.
"Apple's record June quarter was driven by double-digit growth in both Products and Services and growth in each of our geographic segments," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
"In uncertain times, this performance is a testament to the important role our products play in our customers' lives and to Apple's relentless innovation," he said in a statement.
The iPhone sales were $26.4 billion, iPad revenue was $6.6 billion while Mac revenue reached $7.1 billion.
Tim Cook has said that strong iPhone SE launch, continued economic stimulus and some benefit from restrictions lifting around the world saw iPhone revenue grow 2% to $26.4 billion in the June quarter.
The active installed base of iPhones again reached an all-time high as a result of the loyalty of Apple customer base and strength of its ecosystem.
In April, Apple expected year-over-year performance to worsen but saw better-than-expected demand in May and June.
"We expected iPad and Mac growth to accelerate and we saw very strong double-digit growth for these devices this quarter. This remarkable performance came in spite of supply constraints on both products," Cook told analysts during the earnings call on Thursday.
Apple Services vertical (App Store, Apple Music, video, TV+ and iCloud) generated a June quarter record of $13.2 billion, up 15% year-over-year.
"We had strong performance in our digital services with all-time revenue records in the App Store, Apple Music, video and cloud services as well as elevated engagement on iMessage, Siri and FaceTime," informed Cook.