Apple Stock Forecast 2040, 2050: How High Can It Go?

Apple is the world’s largest company, with a market cap of about $2.95 trillion. The tech giant saw immense growth in the past decade, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 20%. 

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.

But first, here’s an overview of Apple stock’s price growth under various relevant growth scenarios.

*The values in the table were calculated using AAPL’s price of $188.5 (as of September 1st).
**S&P 500 has averaged 11.8% annualized returns over the past 66 years, QTEC 17.1%, and AAPL 20.5% 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 $188.5, over +104,600% 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 $198 in July 2023.

Apple’s stock price is up more than 18,700% since 2005.

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 $37.6 trillion as of writing.

Apple stock forecast for 2040

Apple stock’s price increased from roughly $16 in March 2013 to an ATH of nearly $200 a decade later – that means that Apple’s annualized return over the trailing 10-year period has been 20.5%. 

If Apple stock were to continue on that same growth trajectory until 2040, its price would reach $10,697, and Apple’s market cap would surpass $71 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 an 11.8% annual rate between 1956 and 2022, 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 $1,403 by 2040, gaining 644%.

While 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.

Over the trailing 10-year period, QTEC has been growing at a 17.1% annual pace. If we use QTEC’s historical growth to project Apple’s growth, the price of AAPL would increase by 1,614% to $3,231 in 2040. That seems a bit far-fetched, as Apple stock would have to be trading 17 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 $4,282 and gain 2,171% by 2050.

Under such a stock price, the market cap of Apple would grow beyond $56 trillion, which is nearly 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 27 years, the global GDP would stand at $850 trillion.

Finally, let’s examine how high could Apple’s share price reach by 2050 using the historical QTEC growth rate. Under those assumptions, the price of Amazon shares would increase to a whopping $15,664, gaining over 8,200% 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. 

What’s next for AAPL? Apple stock price prediction 2023-2024

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 grow close to $200 in the next three months and proceed to climb even higher into the green zone, reaching $236 next March. After that, the price of AAPL stock is forecasted to retrace below the $170 level by next September.

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 late March 2023 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.