Apple becomes the first $1 trillion US company in history

NEW YORK - The US tech giant Apple has become the first publicly traded US company to reach the historic market value of 1 trillion dollars on Thursday.

Shares of the iPhone maker continued to surge and even hit a session high of 207.05 US dollars per piece around midday trading, bringing it to reach the record valuation.

Apple shares have soared since reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Tuesday after the bell. The stock jumped 5.9 percent on Wednesday and has continued soaring Thursday.

The tech giant reported that its service revenues hit a new all-time-high of 9.5 billion dollars, about 0.4 billion dollars more than analysts' expectations, in its financial report for the third quarter ending June 30, 2018.

Apple said its quarterly revenue increased 17 percent year on year to reach 53.3 billion dollars and profits of 2.34 dollars per share, up 40 percent. Its international sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter's revenue.

The US tech firm forecast revenues of 60 billion dollars to 62 billion dollars for its fiscal fourth quarter, and the gross margin will range from 38 percent to 38.5 percent.

Its operating expenses will stand between 7.95 billion dollars and 8.05 billion dollars.