Apple Needs Just a 7% Gain to Become the World’s Most Valuable Company
Apple and NVIDIA now sit within striking distance of each other at the top of the market cap rankings, but the reason one trades near its all-time high while the other lags tells a more complicated story about which giant…
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) closed Wednesday at $342.96, up 0.50%. That left its market value above $5 trillion at a close for the first time, at about $5.01 trillion. Apple rose while the other megacap tech stocks fell, including NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), which dropped 3.16% to $221.30.
NVIDIA is still the most valuable company in the world at $5.343 trillion, about $338 billion ahead of Apple’s $5.005 trillion. If NVIDIA’s value remains at Wednesday’s close, Apple needs a gain of about 6.8% to pass it.
Both companies beat estimates last quarter, but the market values them in opposite ways. Apple is priced on its installed base of devices and the steady services income that base produces. NVIDIA is priced on a capital spending cycle that depends on a handful of very large buyers.
Investors Picked Cash Flow Over the AI Spending Trade
Inflation data pushed growth stocks lower, and Apple was the only megacap that finished higher. On the same day, CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) fell amid worries about AI debt, and Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) also sold off.
That selloff bears directly on the NVIDIA case, because its growth depends on customers who keep borrowing to build data centers. After hours, Apple added 0.59% to $345.00 while NVIDIA slipped 1.54% to $217.89. After-hours prices are preliminary, though they point the same way.
iPhone Upgrades Compete With Hyperscaler Budgets
| Driver | Apple | NVIDIA |
|---|---|---|
| Latest quarter revenue | $109.42 billion (+16.4%) | $96.22 billion (+105.8%) |
| Main engine | iPhone, $54.25 billion | Data Center, $89.02 billion |
| P/E | About 45x | About 45x |
Tim Cook called fiscal Q3 Apple’s “strongest June quarter ever,” with double-digit growth in every geographic segment. Tariff refunds added about $0.11 to EPS, so part of that beat will not repeat.
NVIDIA guided to $108 billion in revenue for fiscal Q3. Jensen Huang said “compute is revenue,” and management expects growth of approximately 70% in fiscal 2028. Management said shortages of memory, power and foundry capacity are what hold growth to that level.
Apple Sits Near Its High While NVIDIA Lags Its Own
Apple finished just under its 52-week high of $348.15 and well above its $243.42 low. NVIDIA trades below its $243.37 high even though its revenue more than doubled.
That split suggests the market has already priced in Apple’s iPhone 17 cycle and Siri AI launch. NVIDIA’s price, by contrast, reflects concern about how its customers pay for AI and about $279 billion in supply commitments. NVIDIA is growing much faster, though, and its next earnings report is likely to have the largest effect on the gap.
Why Apple’s Valuation Leaves Less Room Than NVIDIA’s
Passing NVIDIA would change a ranking while leaving both companies’ cash flow where it is. On valuation, NVIDIA looks more attractive than Apple at this level. Both stocks trade near 45x earnings. That means investors pay the same multiple for 16.4% growth, helped by tariff refunds, as for 105.8% growth at a 75.0% gross margin.
Apple has more than 2.5 billion active devices, and that durability is valuable. Still, the stock already reflects it, trading within a few dollars of its high.
My view would change if the debt concerns hitting CoreWeave spread to hyperscaler budgets. That would hurt NVIDIA’s orders well before it reached Apple’s upgrade cycle.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
