On the Cusp of $400B Market Cap, Apple Hits Fresh All-time High

Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) climbed to a fresh all-time high on Wednesday as the consumer-electronics titan’s market value edges close to the $400 billion threshold.

The latest gains add to Apple’s 25% rally over the past year and a 5% rise this month alone.

Many Wall Street analysts expect the stock outperformance to continue for the foreseeable future amid continued strength for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s popular products like the iPad and iPhone.

Analysts at RBC raised their price target on Apple to $525 from $500 on Wednesday, translating to a gain of 23.6% from Tuesday’s close of $424.65.

Apple may be poised to generate revenue from a previously-unlikely area: large corporate clients. According to The Wall Street Journal, Forrester Research projects corporate spending on computers will soar in 2012 by 50% to $19 billion, compared with a 3% decrease for non-Apple product spending.

Apple hit a new all-time high on Wednesday of $428.08. In recent trading, it was up 0.51% to $426.83, giving the tech giant an industry-leading market cap of $396.83 billion. By comparison, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) carries a market cap of $204 billion, while IBM (NYSE:IBM) is valued at $212 billion. Apple trails the price tag on ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), the largest U.S. company by market value, by less than $15 billion.