will apple fall?

Apple climbed as high as $292.76 in intraday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, giving it a market value of $267.5 billion, the second-highest company behind Exxon Mobil Corp. By 4 p.m. New York time, Apple slipped to $288.92, putting the company’s value at $263.9 billion, less than PetroChina’s $265.5 billion valuation.

Since introducing the iPhone in January 2007, Apple’s stock has more than tripled. The device now accounts for almost 30 percent of the company’s revenue. Earlier this year, Apple introduced the iPad tablet computer, which is already outselling the nine-year-old iPod.

“There’s no reason at all Apple can’t grow much, much bigger,” said Jane Snorek, an analyst with Minneapolis-based First American Funds, which has more than $100 billion under management, with Apple as its largest technology holding. Apple still has a small portion of the market for phones and computers, she said.

Threat From Android

Apple may have a hard time meeting those projections, said Keith Goddard, president and chief executive officer of Capital Advisors Inc., which owns Apple shares. Smartphones and tablet computers using Google Inc.’s Android operating system will cut into Apple’s performance, he said.

The share of smartphones in the U.S. running Android rose to 17 percent in the quarter ended in July from 12 percent in the previous three months, according toComScore Inc. data. Apple’s iPhone software ran on 24 percent of smartphones, down from 25 percent.

In May, Apple overtook Microsoft as the most valuable technology company. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy when CEO Steve Jobs resumed leadership in 1997. Apple expanded beyond its Macintosh line of personal computers with the iPod in 2001, iPhone in 2007 and iPad this year.(bloomberg)