As the maker of the iPhone advanced in a quest to dominate artificial intelligence technology, Apple overtook Microsoft as the most valuable business in the world on Wednesday.
Its market valuation increased to $3.29 trillion as its shares surged by over 4% to a record $215.04. With a market valuation of $3.24 trillion, Microsoft surpassed Apple for the first time in the previous five months.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq reached a record high on new indications of slowing inflation, coinciding with the stock market boom.
A day after the company introduced a number of Al-enabled features and software upgrades for its smartphones, Apple shares had gained more than 7% in the previous day. Several analysts predicted that this move would boost iPhone sales.
Executives, including CEO Tim Cook, highlighted how speech assistant Siri would be able to interact with messages, emails, calendars, and third-party apps during Apple’s annual developer conference on Monday.
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, explained, “All those questions about Apple lagging from an Al technology standpoint were answered at the Worldwide Developers Conference,”
It became evident from some of the details on the Al capabilities that would be included in the next generation of iPhones that there will undoubtedly be a need for a major upgrade cycle.”
The IT giant’s shares underperformed this year in comparison to its peers because it has lagged behind competitors like Microsoft and Alphabet, the company that owns Google, in the competitive sector of Al.
However, after Apple outperformed market expectations for its quarterly results and outlook in May and revealed a record $110 billion buyback plan, some of the concerns about its poor share performance subsided.
As of now in 2024, Apple’s stock has increased by over 12%, Microsoft’s by roughly 16%, and Alphabet’s by almost 28%.
Leading graphics processor maker Nvidia is up an incredible 154% so far this year. Last week, it momentarily surpassed Apple’s market capitalization. The market value of Nvidia was $3.11 trillion at the time.
With a roughly 30% decline, Tesla is the only other “Magnificent Seven” stock that has performed worse than Apple this year.
