CNN
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apple It just joined an exclusive club: It just became one of a handful of publicly traded companies with a market capitalization of over $4 trillion, joining the ranks of tech giants Nvidia and Microsoft, which both hit the milestone earlier this year.
Apple ( AAPL ) shares rose 0.1% on Tuesday, continuing a sharp rebound driven by strong iPhone 17 sales, including in China, a key market where the company has previously underperformed.
The trend is a reversal from Apple's fortunes earlier this year, when the company faced myriad challenges ranging from President Donald Trump's tariffs to delays in its artificial intelligence products and pressure to produce smartphones domestically, sending its stock price plummeting. In one trading day in April, the company lost more than $310 billion in market value.
But the tech giant's rebound could be seen as a sign that the iPhone is still good enough to excite consumers and Wall Street even as the company lags behind in the artificial intelligence race. Still, Apple shares are up just over 7% this year, a far cry from the 30.7% gain in 2024 and below the broader market's 17% gain.
Apple's new record comes amid a blockbuster year for technology stocks, as a craze for artificial intelligence has soared shares of tech giants to new heights.
Nvidia, a key supplier of artificial intelligence chips, and Microsoft, a major player in the cloud market, beat Apple with a market capitalization of $4 trillion, underscoring the importance of artificial intelligence to Wall Street. Historically, record-breaking valuations have been Apple's domain.
The company became the first public company to reach a valuation of $1 trillion in August 2018. In August 2020, it became the first company to reach a market capitalization of $2 trillion, then crossed the $3 trillion threshold in January 2022, but did not reach that level until June 2023.
Wall Street has been eager to cash in on the technology, which some believe could be as basic as smartphones or the internet, with artificial intelligence playing a larger role in everything from office work to health care and education.
For now, though, the iPhone continues to push Apple to new heights.
“It's clear to us that (CEO Tim) Cook's company has finally succeeded with the iPhone 17, and now Wall Street awaits the announcement of an ambitious strategic roadmap for artificial intelligence,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in an Oct. 20 report.