Apple has returned to the number one spot in the ranking of the world’s most valuable companies, knocking Nvidia off the throne for the first time since April 2025.

The changing of the guard came yesterday, Monday, July 27, 2026, when Apple (AAPL) shares closed the trading session up 1.17% at $336.91, ahead of the company’s earnings report due this Thursday, July 30. The gain lifted the iPhone maker to a market capitalization of $4.95 trillion.

Nvidia shares, by contrast, were hit yesterday by the sell-offs that once again battered AI chipmakers, falling 4.99% — the equivalent of $10.33 — to $196.51. The decline pushed the market value of the chip giant, a member of the Magnificent Seven alongside Apple, down to $4.77 trillion. Apple has reclaimed the crown — but less than 24 hours later, one question is hammering investors: will the reversal prove sustainable?

A tough blow for Nvidia, dethroned by Apple as the world’s most valuable company

Nvidia has certainly taken a heavy hit, considering that the AI chip giant had managed to hold onto the top spot for several months — since June 2025, when it overtook Microsoft.

In October, Nvidia also became the first company to reach a market value of $5 trillion.

Things have changed this year, with the fever for NVDA shares gradually cooling while Apple has performed better.

Why Apple shares are beating Nvidia

Since the start of 2026, Nvidia shares have risen just 4%, while AAPL is up 24%.

Apple has benefited in particular from management’s reluctance to commit to overly high capital expenditure to bet on artificial intelligence (AI) — something several other Big Tech companies have done. Its executives have preferred to buy computing capacity from outside suppliers rather than build their own infrastructure.

This more cautious stance, compared with other US Big Tech names, has rewarded the company at a time when investors are still questioning whether the Magnificent Seven are spending too much without yet seeing a return proportionate to the scale of their investments.

Will Apple’s move past Nvidia prove sustainable? Watch the risk to the iPhone giant

Still, there are several questions about how sustainable Apple’s leapfrogging of Nvidia really is, as summed up by the Barron’s article «Apple Snatches Back the Title of World’s Most Valuable Company. Why It Won’t Last».

The skepticism about Big Tech’s ability to hold onto the title of world’s most valuable company is clear.

The reason? The Barron’s piece points to Apple’s recent decision to raise the prices of some of its products. The announcement came in June, when the iPhone maker said it had increased the prices of Macs and iPads sold worldwide, citing the growing scarcity of the chips needed to assemble its products.

In some cases, the prices of its laptops and tablets jumped by nearly 20%, in the wake of the «unprecedented challenge», the company explained, caused by the «extraordinary surge» in demand for the chips needed to build AI data centers.

In justifying the price increases, Apple admitted it had never seen «an increase in the cost of its components of such magnitude, and so quickly», adding that it was working to fix the problem.

The reassuring news is that, for now, iPhones have been temporarily spared from the wave of price hikes.

But the market is anxiously awaiting the quarterly results due this Thursday to understand how much Apple’s margins have been eaten into by higher costs. The company will report for the first time the impact on its bottom line of the memory chip shortage.

Ahead of the earnings date, it is worth remembering that, on average, the 12-month target price for Apple shares ranges between $320.61 and $325.41. The most bullish scenario points to a jump in AAPL to as high as $400, while the most bearish scenario calls for a drop to $235.

Editor’s note

This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Laura Naka Antonelli on July 28, 2026 as «Apple supera Nvidia e torna la società più capitalizzata al mondo. Perché potrebbe non durare». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.