Apple

Apple Inc. is an American high-tech company. It was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne on April 1, 1976, and named Apple Computer Inc., and changed its name to Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007. It is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

Apple Inc. went public on December 12, 1980, and set a market value record of 623.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2012. As of June 2014, Apple Inc. has been the world's largest company in market value for three consecutive years. Apple ranked 15th on the 2014 Fortune 500 list. On September 30, 2013, in Omnicom Group's "Best Global Brands" report, Apple surpassed Coca-Cola as the world's most valuable brand. In 2014, the Apple brand surpassed Google as the world's most valuable brand.

On December 9, 2014, the Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo AbeSaid Apple would build a large research and development center in Japan. ^[1]  

On January 28, 2015, research firm Canalys said that Apple became China's second largest company in the fourth quarter of 2014 Smart phoneBig market player. ^[2]  On February 24, Apple's share price rose $3.51, or 2.71%, to close at $133, a record high.