After a two-day rally, Apple has hit a new record high stock price and a market capitalization of $2.5 trillion in pre-opening trading on Thursday.

Shares of the Cupertino tech giant were up more than 2% in trading on Wednesday, leading to a market valuation above the $2.5 trillion threshold for the first time. The new high comes a little less than a year after Apple hit $2 trillion.

The company is now the first publicly traded U.S. firm to have surpassed the $2.5 trillion valuation mark.

Earlier in July, the company's share price hit record highs during a rally that has lasted for a couple of weeks. Apple shares have surged 14.33% since the start of 2021.

Apple first hit $2 trillion on August 19, 2020. It then dipped after a mass technology stock sell-off, but returned on September 4, 2020.

While the company had announced its move to Apple Silicon during WWDC in June 2020, it was only after passing $2 trillion that it actually launched its first M1 range. The technical advancements of that range have been critically praised, and have helped the company see rising Mac sales even as the rest of the industry slowed down.

Apple has also subsequently launched its COVID-impacted iPhone 12 range. The great success of that has been described as a supercycle in iPhone sales, and became the world's top-selling 5G phone shortly after launch.

Since reaching $2 trillion, Apple has also launched its Apple One bundle of services, including the introduction of Apple Fitness+.

Despite the coronavirus, the company has also pressed ahead with many more hardware releases. Alongside the brand new AirTags, it launched revised versions of the iPad Pro, the Apple TV 4K — and a redesigned 24-inch iMac.

Even before each of these successful launches, analysts were predicting Apple was capable of reaching $3 trillion. Analyst Gene Munster said in August 2020 that, with 5G and health features, Apple had a "clear path" to that value.

Source: Appleinsider