Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)

Apple designs, manufactures, and sells consumer electronics, software, and services u2014 most notably the iPhone, which alone generates roughly 50% of total revenue. The Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods round out a hardware ecosystem that locks in over 2 billion active devices worldwide. Tim Cook's Apple has pivoted hard into services, building a recurring-revenue empire on top of that installed base. Founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in a Cupertino garage in 1976, the company has become the world's most valuable public corporation.

Hardware sales still dominate u2014 iPhone, Mac, iPad, and wearables collectively pull in north of $300 billion annually. But Services (App Store commissions, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple TV+, AppleCare) now exceed $85 billion a year and carry dramatically higher margins. Apple takes a 15-30% cut on every App Store transaction, which alone is a massive profit engine.

Founded in 1976, Apple went public in 1980 at $22 per share. Steve Jobs was ousted in 1985, returned in 1997, and launched the iMac, iPod, iPhone (2007), and iPad (2010) in rapid succession. The company hit a $1 trillion market cap in 2018 and crossed $3 trillion in 2023. Jobs passed away in 2011; Tim Cook has run the show since.