Apple Takes Large Lead in Global Market Cap Race

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 30, 8:15AM EST

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Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) market value has surged to $3.86 trillion.
This is due to two moves the iPhone maker has made that have encouraged investors.

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Apple Takes Large Lead in Global Market Cap Race — © Apple Inc.. Paris (CC BY 2.0) by sabin paul croce

Last March, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) lost its long-held position as the world’s most valuable company. It fell behind Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) by $554 billion as it dropped to $2.6 trillion. Microsoft’s market value at that time was $3.2 trillion. Because of its app store, Apple had been hit by worries about federal government investigations into its potential monopoly position. Microsoft was riding its position as one of the leading providers of artificial intelligence software.

What a difference nine months makes. Apple’s market value has surged to $3.86 trillion. Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) is in second place at $3.36 trillion due to its massive lead in the AI chip business. Doubts about when Microsoft will benefit from its AI investment have made investors wary about its short-term future. Its market cap has fallen to $3.20 trillion.

Since March, Apple has made two moves that have encouraged investors. Its iPhone 16 is an early success. It finally widely released its AI flagship known as “Apple Intelligence” as part of its new iOS 18. The outlook Apple gave when it released its most recent quarterly numbers was encouraging. These have pushed Apple’s shares up 33% this year, compared to the S&P 500’s 25% gain.

Year to date, Microsoft shares are up only 14%. Its earnings were a disaster. Its forecast, in particular, caused the largest sell-off in the stock in the past two years.

Nvidia’s stock is up 177% this year due to its massive lead in the AI chip market. It holds 65% of the global AI data center chip market.

The next big test of Apple’s stock value will be when it releases earnings for the fourth calendar quarter of this year. It will be the first full quarter that includes three months of iPhone 16 sales and the results of holiday demand.

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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.