Previously, Apple had breached this threshold six times during intraday trading but had never closed at a $5 trillion market cap. Now, amid a declining market, Apple has finally solidified its position at the $5.01 trillion mark, joining NVIDIA at the top.

Analysts point out that while Apple's revenue growth rate is lower than the S&P 500 average, its stock price remains higher than the overall index, indicating that investors favor the predictability of Apple's business and recognize the safety of its stock—especially amid the noise of major companies spending heavily on data center construction, Apple remains focused on its core business, with strict financial discipline and relatively restrained capital expenditures significantly reducing business risks.

The Siri AI assistant, powered by Google's technology, was released this fall. Although it still lags behind the top models on the market in many aspects, Siri's advantage lies in its direct integration with personal devices, theoretically forming a positive feedback loop between personal data and model output. Reports indicate that the company has received approval to launch Apple Intelligence integrated with Tongyi Qianwen and Tongyi Wanxiang in mainland China before the year's end, expected to meet consumers through the iOS 27.3 update in December.

Deep integration of AI models with personal devices is not exclusive to Apple; OpenAI is developing a range of AI devices and has poached hundreds of Apple employees to advance this plan. Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in July this year, accusing it of stealing trade secrets.

OpenAI claims the lawsuit is entirely unfounded and submitted a document yesterday accusing Apple of poaching an OpenAI employee who brought confidential documents to Apple executives.

District Judge Edward Davila stated at yesterday's hearing that he leans towards approving Apple's requested injunction to prohibit OpenAI from using proprietary knowledge provided by former Apple employees.

Analysts point out that leading the company to a $5 trillion market cap is just the first step for Apple CEO John Ternus, who must succeed in the AI field to avoid losing consumer favor for the iPhone.