Apple Briefly Surpasses $5 Trillion Market Value—Joining Nvidia

Topline Apple on Tuesday became the second company in history to be valued at $5 trillion, joining Nvidia as the iPhone maker’s shares have surged in recent weeks, becoming the world’s largest firm by market capitalization.

Apple ranks ahead of Nvidia ($4.7 trillion) as the world’s largest company by market value after surpassing the AI giant on Monday, and ahead of Alphabet ($3.9 trillion) and Microsoft ($2.9 trillion).

Nvidia and Apple have climbed at varying rates so far this year: Apple’s stock has jumped nearly 25%, while shares of Nvidia—down 1.4% on Tuesday—have risen just 2.6%.

The pace at which companies have grown has accelerated in recent years: Apple became the first $1 trillion company in 2018, the first $2 trillion company in 2020 and the first $3 trillion firm in 2022. Nvidia then became the first to reach both $4 trillion and $5 trillion, as booming demand for AI products quickly swelled the valuation of many tech firms.

Apple on Tuesday announced U.S. customers would soon be able to lease an iPhone for up to two years starting at $17.99 per month. The program, named Upgrade, is in partnership with the buy-now, pay-later firm Klarna and will be offered at Apple’s physical and online stores. That comes after the firm raised starting iPad and Mac prices by at least $100, including some models with price tags bumped by more than $1,000, citing a global memory crunch.

Apple long held the title as the world’s most valuable company before being unseated by Nvidia in 2024, and later falling behind Microsoft. The iPhone maker held the top spot for market capitalization for most of the previous decade after first surpassing Exxon in 2011, and then the firm periodically traded spots with Microsoft. Apple, like its mega-cap competitors, has accelerated its spending on AI products over the last year, though its spending projections are just a fraction of others. Apple’s capital expenditures totaled $12.7 billion in fiscal 2025, whereas Alphabet plans to spend $205 billion this year, and Microsoft and Amazon bumped their annual spending plans to as much as $190 billion and $145 billion, respectively.