Apple World's Most Valuable Company

Early trading sees the company's value hit $418 billion – $3 billion more than Exxon.

Using superlatives to describe Apple Inc. has become a little cliched at this point, but nevertheless, the high tech behemoth has once again become the most valuable company in the world. Early trading this morning sent the value of Apple shares up 6.65 per cent, bringing the company's total market value to $418 billion. That total eclipses Exxon's $415 billion, which had made the oil company the most valuable in the world. Apple's share prices have skyrocketed since quarterly earnings from 2011 were released yesterday. That report showed that profits had doubled year-over-year to more than $13 billion, and that sales of both the iPhone and iPad vastly exceeded expectations in the last three months of 2011. All told, Apple's share of the tablet market is now more than 60 per cent. Basically, all this means is that Apple just had a very, very good year (despite the loss of a certain founder/product-tweaking genius), and shows no sign of taking a step backward in 2012.