Nvidia Took Back the World’s Biggest Company Title From Apple on Election Day
Surging AI demand lifted one tech giant back to the top of the market cap rankings on Election Day, while the same force quietly eroded the margins of its closest rival. The gap between first and second place may not…
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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) held the title of the world’s most valuable company for two consecutive closing sessions. On Tuesday, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) rose 2.29% to $206.69, giving it a market value of $4.99 trillion. Apple fell 1.90% to $331.90, leaving it at $4.84 trillion.
“Biggest” here refers only to market value, and Election Day just happens to be the date. Nvidia’s lead is about $149 billion. That is small compared with the gap to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) at $3.87 trillion and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) at $3.44 trillion.
The swap matters because both companies are responding to the same force. The AI expansion keeps pushing memory prices higher. Those higher prices are now cutting into the margins of the world’s largest device maker.
Memory Costs Pushed Apple Back to Second
Apple guided December-quarter gross margin to 45% to 46%. The quarter it just reported came in at 47.9%, and roughly one point of that came from tariff refunds that won’t repeat.
CEO John Ternus said, “What we’re seeing with memory pricing right now is unprecedented,” and added that prices keep rising beyond December. Apple has already raised prices on Mac, iPad and iPhone, and Siri AI will also add cloud inference costs, so margin pressure will likely last past the holidays.
AI Demand Carried Nvidia Back to First
Nvidia had fallen for four sessions before Tuesday’s gain. At its session high, it was worth about $5.05 trillion, but it closed just under $5 trillion.
AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) backed up the AI demand story after the bell. It reported record data center revenue of $8.5 billion, up 97%, and AMD guided fourth-quarter revenue to about $17 billion, plus or minus 3%.
Nvidia’s own data center revenue last quarter reached $89.02 billion, up 117%. That growth supports Jensen Huang’s claim that “compute is revenue.”
On iPhone Duo day, Apple hit a record intraday high of $351.73. Nvidia still finished that day ahead, $5.094 trillion to $5.074 trillion. Apple took the lead at the close on October 30, when Nvidia dropped 4.2% in a chip selloff.
November 17 Decides Whether Nvidia Keeps the Lead
Nvidia guided fiscal third-quarter revenue to $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, and reports on November 17. The stock is still about 13.6% below its record close of $239.24.
After the close, Nasdaq-100 futures fell 2% as Democrats were projected to win the House. Late reports also had Gina Hinojosa, who promised a ban on new data centers, winning the Texas governor’s race.
How Nvidia and Apple Compare on Valuation and Growth
Nvidia screens as the stronger growth story on valuation. It trades at a trailing P/E of about 42, slightly below Apple’s 43, while its revenue grew 105.8% compared with Apple’s 11.7%.
Nvidia also carries risks. It has $279 billion in supply obligations, days sales outstanding rose to 60, and China data center sales are excluded from its guidance.
Apple commands a higher earnings multiple while delivering slower growth and falling margins. Its next dated event is a $0.27 dividend, while Nvidia has a real catalyst coming in two weeks.
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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.
