Apple topped $5 trillion in intraday market capitalisation for the first time.

On July 28, Apple briefly rose above $5 trillion in market value during trading, beating Nvidia a day after it overtook the chipmaker to reclaim its position as the world’s most valuable listed company, CNBC and other foreign media reported. Nvidia had held the No. 1 spot in market capitalisation since June last year, and in October last year became the first company in the world to exceed a $5 trillion market value.

Apple shares ended at $339.33, up 0.72 percent on the day, giving it a market value of $4.98 trillion. The stock rose as high as $342.89 in intraday trading, when its market value reached $5.04 trillion. Nvidia shares also rose 0.53 percent to $197.63, valuing it at $4.78 trillion.

Apple shares are up 25 percent so far this year, outpacing other so-called Magnificent Seven stocks such as Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft. That is seen as reflecting continued investor buying ahead of an earnings release scheduled for July 30.

The strength has also coincided with a trend in which Apple’s approach to artificial intelligence investment is being reassessed. While large tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are continuing capital spending worth hundreds of billions of dollars this year to expand AI infrastructure, Apple has kept capital spending at a low level and has used Google’s cloud infrastructure and AI technology.

Until last year, there were widespread concerns in the market that Apple might be falling behind in the AI race as it restrained investment and delayed the release of an overhauled Siri. Apple plans to unveil the revamped Siri this autumn along with new iPhones. Recently, concerns have grown that companies that invested aggressively in AI are taking on large-scale debt and turning cash flow negative, while failing to show a clear path to recoup profits, flipping the market’s assessment. Apple’s conservative investment stance is being reassessed as a strength.

That dynamic is also being reflected in the market-value race between Apple and Nvidia. Nvidia became the first company in the world to exceed a $5 trillion market value in October last year, driven by demand for the graphics processing units that run most large AI models. This year, however, its share-price gain has been limited to 6 percent, trailing Apple in relative terms.

Apple shares are extending gains despite device price increases tied to a global memory supply crunch. Apple raised prices for MacBooks and iPads last month. Chief Executive Tim Cook (팀 쿡) said at the time that passing rising memory and storage costs on to consumers had become "inevitable". The price increases were the first move to officially reflect cost burdens in product prices. iPhone prices remained unchanged, and an analysis says consumers expecting future increases also moved to buy iPhones, supporting demand.

Dipanjan Chatterjee (디판잔 채터지), vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, said, "Rather than jumping into the AI investment race, Apple has been betting that customer experience, not infrastructure investment, will ultimately determine the winner." He added of Apple’s lease programme, "This is a smart response," saying, "It does not lower the iPhone price itself, but it changes perceptions by shifting the cost burden consumers feel from a lump-sum outlay to a predictable monthly payment."

Market attention is shifting to Apple’s fiscal third-quarter earnings release scheduled for July 30. Analysts expect revenue to rise more than 15 percent from a year earlier. The earnings release will be Tim Cook’s last CEO conference call. With John Ternus (존 터너스) set to succeed Cook and take office as the next CEO on Sept. 1, management’s explanations of Apple’s AI strategy and pricing policy, and its plans to launch new iPhones and Siri, are emerging as key points to watch.