Apple’s market cap closes at $3 TRILLION for the first time since August after its shares climbed 2%

Apple’s market valuation closed above $3 trillion on Tuesday, the first time since August, demonstrating the company’s durability despite a poor holiday sales forecast.

Shares of the iPhone maker rose two percent to $193.42 per share, raising the market capitalization to $3.01 trillion.

Apple became the first company to reach a market value of $3 trillion in June and remained there until August, when the tech giant warned it was headed for a fourth consecutive quarter of declining sales.

The company’s stock price has risen this year, even as the company bought back $76.6 billion of its shares through a buyback program it announced in May.

In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, Apple said its net sales were $383.3 billion and its net income was $97 billion during 2023.

Reported iPhone sales rose 2.8 percent, contributing to total revenue of $89.5 billion, including nearly $1 billion more in services revenue than Wall Street expected.

But the results do not include most of the sales of Apple’s newest iPhone 15 models, and the company forecast that sales for the holiday quarter would be roughly in line with last year.

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said sales for the current quarter, when Apple typically has its biggest sales of new iPhone models, will be similar to the previous year.

Wall Street was expecting a forecast that sales would rise 4.97 percent to $122.98 billion.

Apple faces potential hurdles after the U.S. International Trade Commission issued an order last month that would ban U.S. imports of certain Apple Watches over alleged patent infringement.

The order would take effect on December 26 unless it is overturned on appeal or Apple reaches an agreement with the patent holder to avoid its enforcement.

The Cupertino, California, company also faces an uneven economic recovery in China, a key market for Apple.

Last quarter, China revenue fell 2.5 percent and CEO Tim Cook said the company’s new high-end phone models, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max devices, face supply constraints .

“While we think investors should breathe a sigh of relief that both sales and profits beat expectations, the upside was small and we were concerned to see weak sales from China,” said Tom Forte, an analyst at DA Davidson.

Apple faces tougher competition in the smartphone market this year as Huawei Technologies returns to the field with new phones powered by Chinese-made chips after being virtually shut out of the market for several years by trade restrictions. of the United States government.

Apple’s sales in China fell to $15.08 billion from $15.47 billion in the previous year’s fourth quarter.

CEO Cook said that after accounting for exchange rates, Apple’s business in China grew year on year, driven by iPhone sales and services revenue.

“In mainland China, we set a quarterly record for the September quarter for the iPhone,” Cook told Reuters. “We had four of the five best-selling smartphones in urban China.”

Cook said Apple was “working hard to make more” iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max devices. “We believe that by the end of this quarter we will reach a balance between supply and demand,” he said.

Several global trends are also playing in Apple’s favor, with forecasters predicting that the smartphone market has bottomed out and could begin to recover in 2024.

Longer term, investors are watching how Apple responds to the rise of generative artificial intelligence, in which systems can follow cues in a human-like way, an area that has attracted billions in spending by Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google.