For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in Apple (AAPL) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to AAPL for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
Apple's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at Apple's main business drivers.
Apple’s business primarily runs around its flagship iPhone. The Services portfolio that includes revenues from cloud services, App store, Apple Music, AppleCare, Apple Pay, and licensing and other services now contributes a significant part of revenues.
The non-iPhone devices like Apple Watch and AirPods continue to gain traction. In fact, Apple dominates the Wearables and Hearables markets due to the growing adoption of Watch and AirPods. Solid uptake of Apple Watch has helped Apple strengthen its presence in the personal health monitoring space.
Apple is expanding non-iPhone portfolio with the launch of Apple Vision Pro a spatial computer that blends digital content with the physical world.
Headquartered in Cupertino, CA, Apple also designs, manufactures and sells iPad, MacBook and HomePod. These devices are powered by software applications including iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS operating systems.
Apple’s other services include subscription-based Apple News+, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, new Apple TV app, Apple TV channels and Apple TV+, a new subscription service.
In fiscal 2054, Apple generated $416.16 billion in total revenues. The company’s flagship device iPhone accounted for 50.4% of total revenues. Services, Mac and iPad category contributed 26.2%, 8.1% and 6.7%, respectively. Wearables, Home and Accessories products category contributed 8.6%.
Apple primarily reports revenues on a geographic basis, namely the Americas (North & South America), Europe (European countries, India, Middle East and Africa), Greater China (China, Hong Kong & Taiwan), Japan and Rest of Asia Pacific (Australia & other Asian Countries).
In fiscal 2025, Americas, Europe, Greater China, Japan and Rest of Asia-Pacific accounted for 42.9%, 26.7%, 15.5%, 6.9% and 8.1% of total revenues, respectively.
Apple faces stiff competition from the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Google, Huawei and Motorola in the smartphone market. Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer and Asus are its primary competitors in the PC market. Other notable competitors are Google & Amazon (smart speakers) and Fitbit & Xiaomi (wearables).
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For Apple, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in November 2015 would be worth $9,452.82, or a 845.28% gain, as of November 13, 2025, according to our calculations. Investors should note that this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.
The S&P 500 rose 234.85% and the price of gold increased 271.68% over the same time frame in comparison.
Analysts are anticipating more upside for AAPL.
Apple is benefiting from strong growth in Services revenues. The company now has more than 1 billion paid subscribers across its Services portfolio. The new iPhone 17 series is expected to drive top-line growth. Expanding capabilities of AI Intelligence is noteworthy. Apple expects the December quarter's (first-quarter fiscal 2026) net sales to grow between 10% and 12% on a year-over-year basis. The company expects iPhone sales to grow in double digits year over year. The Mac segment is expected to face a tough year-over-year comparison, and Services are expected to grow at the 2025 rate. However, gross margin is expected to be 47-48% in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, including a tariff impact of $1.4 billion. Increasing regulatory headwinds and tariffs are a concern for investors. Shares have lagged the broader sector in the past year.
The stock is up 9.68% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 10 higher, for fiscal 2025. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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Apple Inc. (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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