Apple reaches $700B valuation

Apple Inc. (NYSE: APPL) reached a milestone no other U.S. company has ever hit – a record value of $700 billion.

Shares of the iPhone maker are up 48 percent this year and continue to rise on sales of the company’s new larger-screen phones just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Bloomberg reports that puts Apple at 1.7 times the capitalization of the world’s second-biggest company, Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), with a capitalization of $405 billion.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s market cap exceeded Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) in 2010. Microsoft has a market capitalization of $394 billion, and Google has one of $369.7 billion.

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