Okay, that whole Apple/super-villain thing? Has anybody checked on the tech-maker’s massive UFO-shaped building lately? Apple seems interested in having all the money — the company is in line to hit a market cap of $3 trillion.

Which isn’t a small amount of money. It works out to a little over R47 trillion, which may be enough to let Tim Cook a) buy and b) completely fix South Africa, and still have change left over to buy everyone a new car. A modest car, but a new one.¹

Apple about to win capitalism

The company’s share price, following a recent increase, stood at $174 a share. In order to cross the $3 trillion milestone, that price needs to increase to $182.85 — it’s an almost trivial sum (per share) but it’ll have massive implications for the company value.

A market cap of $ trillion will, according to Reuters, make it the world’s fifth-largest economy. Economy. Not business. Apple’s money is measured in terms of GDP at this point. Germany has more money than Apple. For now. Any country poorer than that will be smaller than an American company that makes cellphones. Heck, even fictional band Dethklok only managed to become the world’s seventh-largest economy. Because anything higher might have seemed… ridiculous?

There aren’t too many companies who have passed a $1 trillion valuation, even fewer have crossed the $2 trillion mark. The race to $3 trillion is between Apple and Microsoft, which currently lacks around $500 billion to cross that line. Apple’s current trajectory makes it more likely to get there first.

Source: Reuters
¹ We’re totally making these figures up — we didn’t do the math, but R47 trillion is a massive amount of money.