The world gawked two years ago when Apple Inc.’s market value crossed $1 trillion for the first time. But the feat was less noteworthy when viewed from another perspective: relative size.

That’s because, even with a 13-digit price tag, Apple’s place among its peers in August 2018 wasn’t unprecedented; it had gotten bigger, but so had the whole market. As a result, it’s weighting in the S&P 500 remained comparable to past titans in their heydays, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and IBM Corp.

Almost $900 billion worth of market cap later, that’s changing: Apple’s stock market heft has entered uncharted waters. Thanks to more than doubling since last August, its weighting in the S&P 500 just leapfrogged IBM’s in 1985 to become the biggest in 40 years.

‘We’re in this market where the winners are going to win and they’re going to win big,’ said Kim Forrest, a chief investment officer of Bokeh Capital Partners. The iPhone maker’s share in the S&P 500 just surpassed the record 6.4 per cent that IBM held 35 years ago, data compiled by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Bloomberg show. Apple’s overall market cap stands at $1.875 trillion, about 7 per cent away from $2 trillion. The breakthrough speaks to the strength of a company that few can match in a year when Covid-19 is raging. Up 49 per cent this year, Apple’s gain beats all U.S. companies with a market value above $300 billion, except for Amazon.com Inc. The share rally has picked up after the company’s quarterly revenue crushed Wall Street forecasts, boosted by demand from locked down consumers for new iPhones, iPads and Mac computers to stay connected during the pandemic.