Stock Market, Business & Finance Opinion since 2024-Dec-30 9:47 PM GMT

Thursday was a bad day for Apple in the stock market, where the company has been in decline since December 27, 2024. The iPhone stagnation is affecting sales because it is becoming more difficult to convince consumers to upgrade their phones if they do not see that the new iPhone models are improved drastically as compared to the previous version. Apple Intelligence does not seem to be helping Apple to sell more iPhones. The company needs to reverse stagnation trends and it is becoming difficult because iPhone sales represent more than half of the company's total revenue. In consequence, any iPhone sales decline is going to significantly impact Apple’s financial position. Apple is currently receiving more than $20 billion annually from Alphabet. But that income could be lost soon depending on the outcome of the antitrust trial over online search set for April 2025. The deal between Apple and Alphabet makes Google the default search engine on the Safari web browser. If the $20+ billion deal is judged as anticompetitive as the conclusion of the legal case, Apple would stop receiving that amount that is significant to the company. If that amount is 100% profit, it could be equivalent to around 17% of Apple's annual operating income. That may be a game changer with the potential to contribute to make Apple lose its position as the richest company in the world. The future looks uncertain for Apple. They do not currently have a product other than iPhone that can represent a breakthrough to skyrocket sales in the foreseeable future.

Berkshire Hathaway has been experiencing consistent growth this week since Mon, Jan 13th. This is once again a one trillion dollar company, joining one more time the elite group of the only ten companies in the world whose market capitalization reaches one trillion dollars.

Bernard Arnault continues having positive 2025 results for his net worth, with a promising future that is currently in the direction of being better than the negative 2024 that he experienced.

For Jensen Huang, 2025 is not looking bright as his company does not seem to be in the unstoppable patch of continuous growth of 2024.