iPhone Price Stability Boosted Apple Sales

Apple's decision to keep iPhone prices unchanged will likely help the company achieve the strongest June quarter sales growth in the past five years. However, investors' main question is how long the company can sustain this strategy.

Last month, Apple raised prices for iPad and MacBook to offset increased costs caused by a shortage of memory and data storage chips due to large-scale construction of artificial intelligence data centers.

Despite this, the company refused to raise the price of its most important product — the iPhone. During this period, many competing smartphone manufacturers had to pass increased costs on to consumers, which reduced global smartphone shipments to the lowest level in 13 years during the April-June period.

According to research firm Counterpoint, Apple's strategy yielded results — iPhone shipments grew by 3%, while the company's market share reached nearly 20%.

According to analysts, Apple's success was also aided by the fact that, unlike competitors, the company has not spent hundreds of billions of dollars on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Against the backdrop of growing doubts about the effectiveness of AI sector investments, Apple has surpassed Nvidia and remains the world's most valuable company.

The company's shares have appreciated by approximately 25% this year, and on Tuesday, Apple's market capitalization exceeded 5 trillion dollars for the first time. With this result, the company significantly outpaces most of the so-called "Magnificent Seven" technology giants.

According to Dan Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Trust, investors initially criticized Apple for not joining the wave of AI investments. However, today this very strategy has become its advantage, as the market increasingly questions Big Tech's large-scale spending and the real benefits derived from it.