Apple reclaims world’s most valuable company title at $4.88T
Apple has overtaken Nvidia to reclaim the global market capitalisation lead, signalling a shift in investor preference toward proven AI monetisation over infrastructure spending.
Apple has retaken the position of the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of approximately $4.88 trillion, edging out Nvidia’s $4.86 trillion. The shift followed a 3.5% decline in Nvidia’s share price on Friday, ending nearly a year of the chipmaker’s dominance.
The changing of the guard reflects a broader re-evaluation of artificial intelligence strategies by financial markets. For months, Nvidia led global valuations as the primary beneficiary of massive corporate spending on AI infrastructure. Now, investors are rotating toward incumbents capable of extracting direct, durable revenue from the technology.
“Apple was seen as a laggard in the AI race because it wasn’t spending to develop models, but now sentiment has changed,” said Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management. “Apple is less exposed to capex intensity and better positioned to monetize AI via services, ecosystem lock-in, and hardware upgrades. The re-rating reflects confidence in earnings durability rather than speculative AI upside,” Meadows added.
The re-rating coincides with Apple's recent rollout of a long-delayed overhaul of its Siri voice assistant, an attempt to close the gap with faster-moving tech rivals. The company possesses a vast, proprietary dataset of personal user information across its devices, which analysts consider an AI gold mine for improving its assistant's capabilities. However, Apple must still navigate the tension between unlocking this data for AI purposes and maintaining its strict privacy standards.
Beyond software, Apple's valuation is underpinned by renewed strength in its core hardware business. Preliminary estimates from Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor show Apple became the world’s leading smartphone vendor in 2025, displacing Samsung. Global smartphone shipments rose 2% year-on-year for a second consecutive year of growth, with Apple recording the fastest growth rate among the top five brands. This was driven by robust demand for premium devices and expansion in emerging markets.
The market cap milestone carries specific weight for outgoing CEO Tim Cook. With Cook preparing to hand control to hardware veteran John Ternus in September, reclaiming the top valuation provides a strong closing argument for his tenure.
