Apple is on track to become the first company to cross the $4 trillion threshold, buoyed by investors cheering the tech giant's long-awaited AI-enhanced progress to revive flagging iPhone sales.
The company led Nvidia and Microsoft in the race to this monumental milestone thanks to a roughly 16% rise in its stock price since early November, adding about $500 billion to its market capitalization.
Immediately after the opening bell on Monday, Apple's stock was trading at about $255 per share, giving it a market capitalization of $3.86 trillion. The stock has soared nearly 40% since January 1st.
Apple's recent rally reflects “investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and expectations that it will lead to a supercycle of iPhone upgrades,” said Maxim Group analyst Tom Forte, who has a “hold” rating. He said he is doing so.
Nvidia's stock price has soared 184% since the beginning of the year, and as of early Monday morning the stock was valued at $3.35 trillion.
But the stock has cooled in recent weeks as investors become nervous about the company's switch to a new AI chip, Blackwell, which is touted as the most powerful graphics processing unit (GPU).
Microsoft, one of the biggest backers of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, is in third place with a market capitalization of $3.22 trillion.
Earlier this month, Apple released iOS 18.2, a significant software update for the iPhone suite. It includes improvements and features that enhance Apple Intelligence features such as Visual Intelligence for summarizing and translating text.
Another AI feature, Image Playground, generates original images from descriptions.
The latest AI enhancements are available only to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 users.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company expects iPhone sales to be strong during the Christmas shopping season.
“Based on a recent Asian supply chain study, Apple's I think we will continue to have a strong holiday season.” weekend.
Ives predicted that Apple's stock price would exceed the $300 per share plateau within the next 12 months and that the company's market capitalization would exceed $4 trillion “by early 2025.”
“We believe the success of the iPhone 16, with a strong holiday season ahead next week, will be the catalyst for Cupertino's return to growth over the next 12 to 18 months starting this December quarter.”
Apple emerged from its recent iPhone sales slump during the summer quarter, an early sign that recent efforts to revive demand for its flagship product by introducing artificial intelligence are working. It's a sign.
According to Apple's fourth quarter report released at the end of October, iPhone sales for the July-September period were $46.22 billion, an increase of 6% from the same period last year.
This improvement reversed two consecutive years of year-on-year declines in quarterly iPhone sales.
