History of AAPL: What If You Had Purchased Apple Stock in 1980? (Infographic)

We were amazed last summer when Apple (AAPL) stock rose to almost $400 per share, but now that price seems like a steal. AAPL closed at $530 on March 6, 2012, and it’s yet to be seen what kind of impact today’s hotly anticipated iPad 3 release announcement will have on Apple stock prices in the near future.

Original publish date: October 4, 2011

For many Apple enthusiasts, today’s possible new iPhone 5 release brought back childhood holiday sentiments of longing and excitement. Months of speculation regarding an iPhone 5 with changes, updates and innovative features like “Assistant” have caused quite a stir in the tech world, and smartphone users are eager to find out what made the cut.

The phenomena surrounding Apple’s empire, however, was shaped with decades of growth and rebuilding since Apple Inc.’s early 80s roots. Though Apple stock (AAPL) took a downward turn before the iPhone 4S was finally unveiled today, a look at it’s growth since Apple went public in 1980 shows incredible growth and success on the stock market.

Click on the graphic below to see more about Apple stock history and it’s products through this past summer.

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Many investors are experiencing hindsight regret by not taking firm action with Apple long ago. In December 12, 1980, one share of Apple stock (APPL) was worth $2.75, which has grown to $396.75 in August 2011.

Since 2005, Apple stock prices have experienced an upward climb with the acclaim of the iPod and release of the first generation iPhone in 2007. Apple Inc. stock is among the leading competitors in the tech field, just behind Google and easily surpassing Microsoft.

Q1 2011 was booming with the iPhone being Apple’s highest revenue-generating product at $10.47 billion. The iPad takes the second seat at $4.6 billion in revenue, not to mention other revenue outlets such as portables ($3.7 billion), iPods ($3.43 billion), desktops ($1.73 billion), music ($1.43 billion), software ($786 million) and peripherals ($593 million).

Additionally, Apple Inc. has sold approximately 100 million iPhones, 275 million iPods and 25 million iPads to-date, making them the highest contender within portable technology.

Downloads are also another area which Apple dominates as 11.7 billion songs, 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies and 35 million books have been downloaded via Apple Inc.’s iTunes store.

Apps are also breaking through to the top of the list with Apple Inc.’s extensive 425,000 apps, 90,000 of which are for the iPad alone. Currently, 6.5 billion apps have been downloaded by end-users at a rate of 200 apps per second.

Further emphasizing Apple Inc.’s supremacy, two-thirds of all mobile web browsing is through their Safari web browser. Mac fans are climbing the ranks of computer users with the existing 54 million active Mac users, 73 percent of whom use notebooks alone.