Nvidia Worth Almost as Much as Apple

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 29, 6:40AM EDT

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Nvidia Worth Almost as Much as Apple — © BING-JHEN HONG / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

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The market cap of Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) may soon top that of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).
The share price of the former is on the rise, while the prospects for the latter are uncertain.

It is hard to believe that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is not the most valuable public company based on market cap. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) took that crown away last year. Microsoft had a large cloud business. Apple had the iPhone. The cloud business had a bright future. The iPhone was more in question. A similar situation has brought the market cap of Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) an inch away from Apple’s. In this case, Nvidia is the dominant force in artificial intelligence (AI), which has been described as the most significant tech advance since the internet. Apple still has the iPhone, and not much more.

Apple’s market cap is $2.9 trillion, while Microsoft is well ahead at $3.2 trillion. Microsoft is making its own major push into AI, primarily through its agreement with OpenAI. Nvidia’s market cap has topped $2.8 trillion. And the market cap trend is very much in Nvidia’s favor. Its stock is up 120% this year. Apple’s is down 1%. Apple has no significant AI play.

Nvidia’s Advantage

An AI iPhone?

Investors do not have to look further than earnings to see Nvidia’s advantage. In the most recently reported quarter, its revenue rose 262% year over year to $26 billion, and per-share earnings rose 629% to $5.98.

In the most recent quarter, Apple’s revenue dropped 4% to $90.8 billion. Earnings were flat at $1.53 a share. Perhaps most importantly, iPhone revenue fell from $51.3 billion to $46 billion. Apple has to rely on strong sales of the new iPhone 16 to recover. It is unclear whether it will have significantly advanced features that will get buyers to upgrade from the iPhone 15.

What could turn Apple around? The iPhone and iOS could have extraordinary AI features. The media reports that Apple is talking to Alphabet about an AI partnership. However, AI software is already available on many devices, and the new iPhone may not have upgrades that will distinguish it.

What could bring Nvidia’s market cap down? The primary reason is that Nvidia’s rapid rise in value has attracted dozens of small competitors. Rival AMD may produce chips that have better features, or it could undercut Nvidia’s product on price. Nvidia’s challenge is to keep its market share.

Right now, the market is betting that Nvidia can hold its own and that the iPhone cannot.

This Is How Much Money Nvidia Makes Every Minute

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.