After Nvidia and Microsoft, Apple also exceeded 4,000 billion in market capitalization for the first time in history, thanks to the sales of the iPhone 17 which was more successful than the models of recent years. So yesterday on Wall Street the shares rose by almost 1%. According to an analysis by Counterpoint Research, in the first ten days of sales in the US and China the new model saw an increase of 14% compared to the same period of the previous year.
A CONSTANT RISE
Apple’s rise is constant: it reached 1,000 billion in 2018, 2,000 in 2020 and 3,000 in 2022, becoming the company with the largest capitalization in the world in that period. Also yesterday, Microsoft, which had reached the milestone last July and then dropped to 3,900 billion, once again exceeded the threshold thanks to a 3% rise in shares on Wall Street: the market rewarded the stock after the announcement of control of 27% – around 135 billion dollars – of the for-profit division of OpenAi, a company that Microsoft has been financing since 2019 with investments of around 11 billion dollars. OpenAi is valued at around $500 billion and has just announced that it has completed the legal process to transform from a non-profit to a for-profit organization.
Returning to Apple, in the last three months the stock on Wall Street has gained 25%, driven by the excellent sales of the iPhone and the easing of tensions with Donald Trump, with the president aiming to “spare” the giant from tariffs on tech products assembled in China. “Apple shares head into the next quarter with an aura of optimism greater than at any time in the last year,” Samik Chatterjee, an analyst at JP Morgan, wrote in a note. Chatterjee maintains a “buy” recommendation on the stock and raised his price target to $290 per share on Monday.
The group led by Tim Cook will present its accounts tomorrow after the markets close and analysts expect a good performance. In addition to courting the Trump administration by promising investment in the United States, Apple has also moved some production to India and Vietnam, hoping for lower tariffs than those expected against Beijing.
THE QUESTIONS
However, several questions remain about future strategies of the group. In 2024, the iPhone represented the largest portion of Apple’s revenue, with revenue of $201.2 billion out of a total of $391 billion. The second most important contribution came from services (iCloud, Apple TV, App Store) which generated 96.2 billion. And it is precisely this strong link with the iPhone and with a relatively old technology like smartphones that worries analysts. Unlike Nvidia and Microsoft, which have reached 4,000 billion in capitalization driven by enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and products already available on the market, Apple is still behind. The company does not yet have the AI-enhanced version of Siri on the market that it announced this summer, while competitors such as Google and Samsung already offer advanced tools, Gemini and Galaxy Ai respectively. Yet, with over a billion active iPhones in the world, to which are added devices such as Apple Watch and services such as Apple TV, Apple can afford to move more slowly and, as it has done in the past with smartphones, try to enter an already established market with the aim of revolutionizing it.
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