With a market cap of about $3.3 trillion, Apple is the world’s largest publicly traded company. The tech giant saw immense growth in the past decade, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 23%.
But how much room for growth is there for AAPL going forward? Given its dominance in the tech industry and global presence, Apple could continue to scale up alongside the broader global economy in the future.
In this article, we are going to examine Apple stock forecasts for 2040 and 2050, accounting for the historical growth of important market indices, and try to project how much higher the most valuable company could grow in the future.
Key highlights:
- Apple, the world’s largest company with a $3.3 trillion market cap, has grown at over 23% CAGR in the past decade.
- Based on the S&P 500’s historical 9.25% ROI, Apple’s stock could reach $898 by 2040 and $2,175 by 2050.
- Using the tech-focused QTEC index’s 15.5% historical growth rate, Apple’s stock is projected to hit $2,181 in 2040 and $9,197 in 2050.
- Short-term prediction for 2024-2025 indicates significant fluctuations, with Apple’s stock potentially dropping to a multi-year low.
Here’s an overview of Apple stock’s price growth under various relevant growth scenarios.
| 2025 | 2030 | 2040 | 2050 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL stock forecast (S&P 500 historical 9.25% ROI)* | $238 | $371 | $898 | $2,175 |
| AAPL stock forecast (QTEC historical 15.5% ROI)* | $252 | $517 | $2,181 | $9,197 |
| AAPL stock forecast (Apple historical 23.7% ROI)* | $270 | $781 | $6,543 | $54,847 |
The values in the table were calculated using AAPL’s price of $218 (as of September 9th).
*S&P 500 has averaged 9.25% compounded annualized returns over the past 50 years, QTEC 15.48%, and AAPL 23.69% over the trailing 10-year periods, respectively.
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Apple stock price history
When the company first started trading, Apple (AAPL) stock price was changing hands at about 18 cents per share. Now, more than 40 years later, AAPL is trading at $218, over +121,000% above its original price.
A major part of Apple’s price growth happened in the last 20 years, during which the price of Apple shares increased from $1 to an all-time high of $236 in July 2024.
Apple, being the leading multinational technology company in terms of market share, accounts for 7% of the entire weight of the S&P 500, an index measuring the value of the 500 largest American companies trading on the stock market. For context, the combined value of companies indexed by the S&P 500 is $45.6 trillion as of writing.
Apple stock forecast for 2040
Apple stock’s price increased from roughly $26 in July 2014 to an ATH of more than $230 a decade later – that means that Apple’s annualized return over the trailing 10-year period has been 23.69%.
If Apple stock were to continue on that same growth trajectory until 2040, its price would reach $6,543, and Apple’s market cap would surpass $90 trillion, which is just not feasible as there is little chance that the entire economy would grow at a sufficient rate to support such growth.
For this reason, we decided to use the historical yearly average of the S&P 500 Index, which has appreciated at a 9.25% annual rate between 1974 and 2024, and inputted the data into our investment calculator.
Using the S&P 500’s historical growth, we get a much more realistic-looking long-term forecast for the price of Apple stock – the price of APPL would increase to $898 by 2040, gaining 312%.
While the S&P 500 does provide a useful measure of what can be expected of a large-cap company over a long period of time, it benchmarks companies from every sector, from finance to healthcare, and is not necessarily the best suited to predict the growth of a tech company.
Since Apple is foremost a technology company, the tech-oriented NASDAQ-100-Technology Sector Index Fund (QTEC) is arguably much better suited to predict the future growth of one of the largest tech companies.
Since its inception, QTEC has been growing at a 15.5% annual pace. If we use QTEC’s historical growth to project Apple’s growth, the price of AAPL would increase by 900% to $2,015 in 2040. That seems a bit far-fetched, as Apple stock would have to be trading over 9 times above its ATH (accounting for AAPL’s stock splits) to reach that price.
Apple stock forecast for 2050
Using the S&P 500 Index as the basis for long-term AAPL stock price prediction, Apple stock would reach $2,175 and gain 898% by 2050.
Under such a stock price, Apple’s market cap would grow beyond $61 trillion, which is roughly 20 times higher than it is today.
It is worth noting that the stock market could see quite considerable growth in the coming decades, so it could theoretically support such a huge market cap. Looking back, the global gross domestic product (GDP) grew from 12 trillion in 1985 to $101 trillion in 2022, a 742% increase in 27 years. If that same GDP were to persist in the next 26 years, the global GDP would stand at $850 trillion.
Finally, let’s examine how high Apple’s share price could reach by 2050 using the historical QTEC growth rate. Under those assumptions, the price of Apple shares would increase to a whopping $9,197, gaining over 4,119% in the process. It’s safe to assume that such a price level is impossible to reach under current or even the most optimistic future market dynamics.
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What’s next for AAPL? Apple stock price prediction 2024-2025
According to our Apple prediction algorithm, AAPL’s price will experience significant “up-and-down” activity in the next year. The price is projected to drop to $138 by Q3 2025, which would represent a -38% retracement compared to current rates.
However, the mobile phone and personal computer manufacturer could have a better year than what is predicted by our algorithm. The Apple stock forecast was calculated using the state of technical indicators as of September 2024 and could change considerably going forward, especially if the underlying signals change.
The bottom line: Long-term Apple stock price forecasts are looking promising
Over the past 20 years, Apple has been one of the best-performing companies in the world. With its wide range of products and services and a loyal customer base, it’s hard to imagine that Apple’s fortunes will change considerably in the coming years. It is reasonable to assume that the company will at least follow the growth of the S&P 500, if not do even better.
If you want to read more about long-term stock price forecasts, check how much higher Tesla and Amazon could reach by 2040 and 2050.
If you are interested in cryptocurrency forecasts instead, feel free to check our long-term prediction for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and Solana.
