Quick Read

  • Cook sold 3.1 billion iPhones, growing Apple’s S&P 500 share from 3% to 6% and reaching a $4.78 trillion market cap.

  • Cook adopted Google’s Gemini at $1 billion per year after Apple’s internal AI software failed and key engineers left for competitors.

  • Apple’s choice to skip the AI data center spending race could prove brilliant or catastrophic depending on whether AI growth sustains.

  • Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Apple didn’t make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

According to International Data Corporation, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) sold 3.1 billion iPhones under Tim Cook’s leadership. The FT says Apple’s market cap went from about 3% of the S&P 500 to 6% today. Toward the end of that run, Apple’s relation to the S&P flattened at between 6% and 8%. In the last few years, companies have gained on Apple’s place. at the top of the market cap ladder.

In particular, its market cap dropped below Nvidia’s (NASDAQ: NVDA). Apple’s hardware sales core gave way to Nvidia’s AI chips. Nevertheless, Apple remains in No. 2 at $4.78 trillion. Nvidia’s is $5.25 trillion. For all their AI prowess, every other stock in the Magnificent 7 sits behind Apple in value.

Tim Cook stands at a podium wearing black academic robes and a red ceremonial stole with university seals, raising a fist while speaking at MIT's 2017 commencement ceremony. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) via YouTube

If there is one criticism of Cook’s tenure, it is that he could not come up with a product that came anywhere close to the iPhone’s success. Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in 2007, so it is nearly two decades old. That is a very long time to have a single flagship product. However, Cook updated it so often and added features. The iPhone has been the most profitable smartphone. For most of Cook’s tenure, it has been the best-selling. From time to time, Samsung moved ahead.

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It is hard to say what Cook’s reputation will be regarding AI. His attempt to build Apple’s own software did not work. Its top engineers went to other companies. Cook eventually adopted Google’s Gemini product, which it will pay $1 billion a year for. Gemini will power Apple Intelligence and Siri. Apple seems to have gotten the better deal financially, but Gemini gets huge distribution across Apple’s installed hardware base. That will help it compete with OpenAI and Anthropic.

Another benefit Apple may end up having in the AI sector is that it is not in the race for expansion that is costing OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and several others hundreds of billions of dollars to build AI data centers. If AI growth slows, these moves will become among the worst decisions in US business history. Apple will not have drained its bank account betting on a single horse.