A week before its expected launch of the very much anticipated iPad 3, Apple fuelled enough investors' excitement and saw its shares soaring thereby pushing its total market capitalisation beyond the $500 billion mark.

As of Wednesday in Wall Street, Apple shares gained 1.3 percent and closed its market cap at about $US506 billion, the second highest so far posted by a technology firm, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The highest was recorded in the early 2000 by Microsoft at $600 billion and back in the days when computing was synonymous to the company's flagship Windows operating system.

More than a decade after, Microsoft's market value has shrunk considerably, with AP reporting that the company's current worth is now pegged at around $US267 billion.

Its archrival Apple, meanwhile, has rediscovered its energy in the back of successive hit products that the firm churned out since mid-2000 and topped in the new decade by its reinvention of the portable music player, mobile phone and tablet computer.

With the iPod, iPhone and iPad capturing the imagination of millions of consumers around the world, Apple, under the leadership of former CEO Steve Jobs, raced though strings of commercial triumphs that saw the company surpassing Microsoft in 2010 as the most valuable tech firm in the planet.

And January this year, Apple dethroned Exxon Mobil Corp, regarded as the perennial market leader, as the most valuable company, with experts fully expecting that the surge will be sustained over the long term.

That supposition is backed by Apple's incredible profit in the first quarter of 2012, netting more than $US13 billion in the period, according to Agence France Presse (AFP), and en route to whopping revenue of more than $46 billion.

To date, Apple has stashed on its banks some $97.6 billion in cash, according to AP, enough for the tech titan to do just about anything that it wants to do.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has informed company investors that Apple's cash flow is more than enough but assured that the board are mulling ways to ensure that the money will be used wisely.

And 2012 promises another record year for the company as Apple gears up to sustain its 55 million iPads sold so far with the supposed release of the bestselling tablet's third edition on March 7 in San Francisco.

The company is mostly silent if the San Francisco event would witness the 2012 debut of a new iPad, seemingly content on its teasing press invitation that reads: "We have something you really have to see. And touch."

The new iPad will definitely be an upgrade from its predecessor, in terms of speed and style, though nothing is certain for now on the device's actual features and design.

One thing is sure though, tech experts said, iPad 3 will be a 2012 hit with no clear competition in sight, with Apple's nearest rival so far, Samsung, recently admitting that its tablet products never really measured up against the iPad.