Apple Reclaims Title as World’s Most Valuable Company

Apple regained the position of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company on Friday after its market capitalization rose to about $4.88 trillion, surpassing Nvidia’s roughly $4.84 trillion.

Apple shares reached an intraday high of $334.99 on Friday, while Nvidia shares fell more than 3% in early trading, reducing the AI chipmaker’s market value. Nvidia had held the top ranking since June 2025 and became the first company to reach a $5 trillion market capitalization in October.

Year-to-date through 2026, Apple shares are up about 22% and Nvidia shares are up about 7%. Investors reacted positively to Apple’s artificial intelligence plans and its relatively modest capital spending. Investor interest has shifted toward memory chips and data-center infrastructure, benefiting companies such as Micron Technology and Sandisk and weighing on Nvidia’s gains.

Apple is preparing a leadership change: Chief Executive Tim Cook will hand operational leadership to hardware chief John Ternus in September. Last month Apple introduced a major overhaul of Siri and is expanding Apple Intelligence, its AI platform for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Apple has said agentic Siri capabilities are expected to be released later this year.

HSBC upgraded Apple to Buy from Hold on Friday and raised its price target to $366 from $260, implying about 10% upside from the previous close. The broker cited the AI feature rollout, an active product roadmap and a modest capital spending model compared with large cloud providers.

HSBC analyst Nicolas Cote-Colisson wrote, “We believe that the launch of AI features and a strong product pipeline have the potential to drive a major upgrade cycle.” The analyst highlighted Apple’s roughly 2.5 billion installed devices and a lower capital expenditure profile as advantages for scaling new services, and flagged expected hardware releases later this year, including a foldable iPhone Ultra and the iPhone 18 Pro models.

Analysts note that much personal data is stored on Apple devices but remains protected within the company’s operating systems. They say Apple will need technical and product solutions to use device data for more personalized AI features while preserving privacy protections.

The return of Apple to the top of market-value rankings reflects recent shifts in investor focus within the technology sector, where AI features, device ecosystems and infrastructure spending influence company valuations.