San Francisco, Feb 11 (IANS/EFE): Shares of tech giant Apple surpassed $122, making the firm the first company in world history to exceed $700 billion in capitalisation at the close of a trading day.

The Cupertino, California-based company had exceeded $700 billion in capitalisation on a previous occasion, but this is the first time that it remained above that level at the close of trading Tuesday.

Apple's value at the close on Wall Street stood at $710.7 billion.

Investors use stock market capitalisation, which is calculated by multiplying the price of one share at the day's market close by the total number of outstanding shares, to determine the value of a company.

The value of the firm is almost double that of the three next largest companies in the Standard & Poor's 500.

Oil major Exxon Mobil, the second largest company in the world, is valued at $385 billion, while Berkshire Hathaway weighs in at $370 billion and Microsoft at $349 billion.

Apple surpassed $600 billion in capitalisation in August 2012, after moving above $500 billion the previous February.

Most analysts believe that Apple shares are headed still higher.

Some, like Ben Retizes with Barclays, predict that the tech firm's shares will continue rising to the $150 level.

Optimism about Apple's prospects skyrocketed after the company presented its new iPhone models last September, a move that enabled the company to take in record earnings of $18 billion during the fourth quarter.