Tech giant Apple has written another chapter in Wall Street history.
The Californian company became the first company to exceed $ 3 trillion in market capitalization on Monday.
It was less than four years ago that stockbrokers celebrated the first jump over the 1 trillion mark with shaky hands.
At this pace, the rest of the world looks with a mixture of envy and respect at the figurehead of the American tech industry, which is generally far ahead with its incredible financial strength.
The stock market star Apple, which was only founded in 1976, has an impressive record. Although with every new iPhone model the speculation shoots up that this time the sales figures will definitely come under significant pressure and Apple's high price policy will take revenge, the devices then find raging sales around the world. In the past fiscal year, Apple earned a staggering 95 billion dollars - despite the pandemic, supply chain problems and chip shortages.
The secret of success is the Apple cosmos. The company has long been more than just the iPhone group. In recent years, CEO Tim Cook has placed successful hardware products such as iPads, Airpods and, most recently, Homepods around the core product. Ingeniously connected by its own iOS operating system, Apple has free rein for its own services. The in-house music streaming service already plays in the top international group around Spotify & Co., the TV counterpart has the potential to catch up on Netflix and Amazon thanks to huge financial reserves. And it is not only the German financial sector that has not found a conclusive answer to the Apple Pay payment service.
The culmination of this symbiotic connection of hardware and software would be the Apple car.
Every new speculation about this electrifies the stock exchanges and makes traditional automakers sweat.
Is Apple anti-competitive?
The login effects are enormous: those who have once arrived in the Apple world as a consumer will rarely leave it again in view of the high switching costs.
However, the closed nature of the Apple universe is also its greatest weak point.
Because the number of lawsuits accusing the group of anti-competitive behavior is increasing.
In the dispute over the rules of the game in the important App Store, Apple has already suffered a defeat.
A court in California gave the free app developers more say in 2020.
Like Facebook, Google and Amazon, Apple has to worry above all about political regulation.
Driven by a global public that is increasingly eerie about the growing power of big tech, plans to break up could put an end to the soaring.
But that doesn't seem to be in sight in the short term.
It is more likely that a few more records will fall first.