Apple is the first company in US history to achieve a value above $700bn (£459bn).The tech firm set the record at the close of trading on Wall Street on Tuesday, making it almost twice the size of the next biggest company, oil producer Exxon Mobil at $385bn.

Apple shares rose almost 2% in the trading session, closing at $122.02.

It gave the company a market value of $710.7bn (£466.1bn).

Apple, which has reported record sales and profit in recent quarters, has crossed the $700bn line before in the course of daily trading but Tuesday was the first time any US company had finished the day above that line.

At the end of January the company reported quarterly profit of $18bn (£11.8bn) for the final three months of 2014 – the largest ever made by a public company.

Its financial performance was driven by its new range of larger iPhones, with 74.5 million handsets sold between October and December.

And a job advert recently sparked speculation it was preparing to challenge Google’s search engine dominance.

Apple had announced earlier on Tuesday that it was to spend nearly $850m on a solar energy project, aimed at generating enough power for its new corporate headquarters in Cupertino, retail stores and other operations in California.

It is being constructed on 2,900 acres of land and was a response, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, to the company’s concerns about climate change.

He said construction would begin later this year and be completed by the end of 2016.