Apple's market capitalization tops 800 billion dollars

The market capitalization of Apple has briefly surpassed 800 billion U.S. dollars (approx. 904 trillion Korean won) before closing the day trade on Sunday (local time). Currently, Apple records the largest market cap in the world. Apple share has soared at the news that Berkshire Hathaway led by investment genius Warren Buffet has become one of largest shareholders.

Apple announced on that day that it became the fourth largest shareholder (2.6 percent) by acquiring Apple shares worth 12.1 billion dollars (13.7 trillion won) during the first quarter of 2017. Shares of Apple popped on Monday after Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett praised Apple, calling the iPhone “a very, very, very valuable product.” Shares hit a high of 153.7 dollars (174,000 won), before closing at 153 dollars a share (173,318 won). The market capitalization of Apple is recorded at 797.72 billion dollars (903.7 trillion won) before closing the day.

Financial experts forecast that the market cap of Apple will continue to rise. Experts raise a possibility that Apple would invest its abundant cash assets accumulated for over 10 years since the release of the iPhone on massive M&As. The cash reserve of Apple is 256.8 billion dollars (approx. 290 trillion won) as of March, which means that Apple can acquire both American automaker Tesla and the world’s largest video streaming service company Netflix at the same time.

There is a high expectation of Apple’s new product. For recent sluggish sales of the iPhone, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that it might be because of that various rumors on the upcoming iPhone 8 spread quickly.

There are conflicting observations in the timing of release of the iPhone 8. Traditionally, Apple has unveiled its latest iPhone model every September. Bloomberg and other news media predicted that this year’s release of the iPhone 8 will be delayed by one to two months due to the concerns about massive supply of sophisticated parts such as Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED). However, Chinese Economic Daily News that is familiar with Taiwanese companies such as Foxconn said that there will be no problem in the production of the iPhone 8.

Dong-Il Seo dong@donga.com