San Francisco, May 13 (IANS): Apple's expected launch of its $1,000 iPhone this year would give it market capitalisation of nearly $900 billion, making it the first company ever with such a mammoth valuation, a media report said.

"Apple will unveil its first $1,000 iPhone in September and that it could help rocket average selling prices and gross margins and 'drive meaningful upside' to the stock," marketwatch.com reported on Saturday.

Earlier this month, Apple's market capitalisation briefly soared past $800 billion threshold and shares closed up 2.7 per cent for the day at $153.01 late on May 8, taking the company to a market value of $797.8 billion.

Alphabet, Google's parent company, is the second most valuable company with a market cap of $653 billion, followed by Microsoft at $532 billion.

Apple sold 50.8 million iPhones in the first three months of 2017, down one per cent year-on-year, according to the company's second quarter results that came earlier in May.

The dip in iPhone sales was offset by services, including Apple Pay, iCloud and the App store, which recorded an 18 per cent increase in sales to $7 billion.

Due to the robust sales of its iPhone 7 Plus, the revenue from iPhones climbed one per cent to $33.2 billion.