Apple Dethrones Microsoft As The World's Most Valuable Company As the maker of the iPhone advanced in a quest to dominate artificial intelligence technology, Apple overtook Microsoft as the most valuable business in the world on Wednesday. Its market valuation increased to $3.25 trillion when its shares increased by more than 2% to $211.75.

As the maker of the iPhone advanced in a quest to dominate artificial intelligence technology, Apple overtook Microsoft as the most valuable business in the world on Wednesday. Its market valuation increased to $3.25 trillion when its shares increased by more than 2% to $211.75. With a market valuation of $3.24 trillion, Microsoft surpassed Apple for the first time in the previous five months. A day after the company introduced a number of AI-enabled features and software upgrades for its devices, Apple shares shot to an all-time high in the previous session, a move that multiple analysts predicted would boost iPhone sales.

Executives, including CEO Tim Cook, praised Siri's voice assistant capabilities at Apple's annual developer conference on Monday. Siri can communicate with messages, emails, calendars, and third-party apps. The IT giant's stock underperformed this year compared to peers because it has lagged behind competitors like Microsoft and Alphabet, the owner of Google, in the hottest sector of artificial intelligence. As of now in 2024, Apple's stock has increased by roughly 10%, Microsoft's by roughly 16%, and Alphabet's by almost 28%.

Following Apple's announcement of a record $110 billion buyback plan in May and its quarterly results and projection exceeding market expectations, some of the concerns around its poor share performance subsided. Leader in AI chips Nvidia is up a staggering 144% this year and last week briefly passed Apple in market value. The market value of Nvidia was $3.06 trillion at the time. With a more than 30% decline, Tesla is the only other member of the "Magnificent Seven" stocks that have performed worse than Apple this year.