\n<\/p>\n
Apple has become only the second company to pass the $5tn valuation mark, as it benefited from investors fleeing AI and semiconductor stocks amid a wider tech sell-off.<\/p>\n
The iPhone maker\u2019s shares hit a session high \u2060of $342.89 on Tuesday, giving it a market \u2060capitalisation of $5.04tn (\u00a33.78tn), then eased back to 0.8% up at $339.68 \u2013 around the $4.99tn mark.<\/p>\n
Apple became the world\u2019s most valuable company earlier this month, overtaking the chip giant Nvidia, which had been \u2060at the top since June 2025 and became the first company ever to breach the $5tn threshold last October.<\/p>\n
The US consumer electronics company\u2019s rally has been driven \u2060as much by strong demand for its products as its decision to sit out the \u200bAI spending race that is sapping cash \u200cflows at big tech \u200crivals.<\/p>\n
Its fresh valuation high came amid an intensifying sell-off of AI stocks around the world driven by rising concerns about AI companies\u2019 borrowing to fund datacentre expansion.<\/p>\n
US chip stocks extended their recent losses when Wall Street opened on Tuesday, with Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Sandisk, Western Digital and Seagate Technology all down by more than 4%.<\/p>\n
The Nasdaq 100 index of leading tech stocks fell by as much as 1.8% at one point, meaning since its early June record high it had fallen more than 10% \u2013 the technical definition of a market correction.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile South Korea\u2019s stock market slid to its lowest level since mid-April, with semiconductor companies SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics falling by more than 10%.<\/p>\n
Analysts attributed the sell-off to renewed worries over AI investment spending, and competition from cheaper Chinese companies, after a report by the Information that China had begun mass production of homegrown deep ultraviolet (DUV) chip-making tools.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Apple\u2019s decision to hold iPhone prices steady, despite increases last month for MacBooks and iPads, has bolstered demand. <\/span> Photograph: Lucas Jackson\/Reuters<\/p>\n Investors may also be growing jittery about the \u201ccircular funding\u201d at the heart of the AI industry, through which artificial intelligence companies finance one another.<\/p>\n They have also been spooked by the announcement by Google last week that it was further increasing capital spending this year to as much as $205bn to fund its AI plans, while reporting negative free cashflow for \u200bthe first time in its history, burning through $5.9bn in the three months to the end of June.<\/p>\n Apple has been shielded somewhat by being somewhat of an AI laggard. Its difficulties in developing in-house models meant it has instead relied on Google\u2019s \u200ctechnology to power new services such as a revamped Siri. That has spared it the hefty infrastructure costs that have left big tech investors wary.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Apple\u2019s decision to hold iPhone prices steady last month when it announced increases for MacBooks and iPads has also bolstered demand as buyers scooped up the company\u2019s flagship device ahead of expected \u200cprice hikes later this year, analysts have said.<\/p>\n To aid demand, Apple on Tuesday also launched a device leasing programme in the US through the payments \u200bfirm Klarna, under which monthly payments start at $17.99 for an iPhone, $11.99 for an Apple Watch or iPad, and $24.99 for a Mac.<\/p>\n \u201cApple has resisted the AI spending race, betting that customer experience \u2013 not infrastructure investment \u2013 will ultimately determine the winners,\u201d said Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester. \u201cThe \u2060new leasing programme is a clever response: it doesn\u2019t reduce the price \u200bof an iPhone, but \u200bit changes how consumers perceive the cost \u200bby replacing sticker shock with a predictable monthly payment.\u201d<\/p>\n Including session gains, Apple \u200bstock has jumped \u200c24% so far this year, \u200bwidely outperforming the \u200bother six of the \u201cMagnificent Seven\u201d cohort of US technology stocks.<\/p>\n Apple is to report its third-quarter earnings after the market close on Thursday, with analysts expecting a more than 15% jump in revenue for the period compared with a year earlier.<\/p>\n Reuters contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apple has become only the second company to pass the $5tn valuation mark, as it benefited from investors fleeing AI and semiconductor stocks amid a wider tech sell-off. The iPhone maker\u2019s shares hit a session high \u2060of $342.89 on Tuesday, giving it a market \u2060capitalisation of $5.04tn (\u00a33.78tn), then eased back to 0.8% up at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[18262,3198,2071,6172,3106,15011],"class_list":{"0":"post-51479","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-5tn","9":"tag-apple","10":"tag-company","11":"tag-flee","12":"tag-investors","13":"tag-stocks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}