Key Points
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The new Apple iPhone 18 hit the market on Friday, but it's saving a premium-priced surprise for next month.
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The iPhone Duo will be released on Oct. 23 with a steep price point and a potentially problematic screen.
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The high-end smartphone will find its audience. Fans and hungry telcos have too much riding on it working out.
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Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) new iPhones are here, and this could be just the ticket to get the consumer tech titan back on top of the market cap throne. It doesn't have far to go to get there.
The stock's recent gains now place it within 2% of hitting a market cap of $5 trillion. Perhaps even more intriguingly, Apple is now less than 10% away from overtaking Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) to become the market's most valuable company by market capitalization.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
Apple's business isn't growing as quickly as Nvidia's these days, but it is closing the gap in market cap. Nvidia investors can't feel too bad, with the stock up 26% over the past year. It's just that Apple stock has soared by more than 40% in that time. Momentum is on its side, and that's before a bar-raising device hits the market.
Flipping things around
For more than a dozen years, Apple has fallen into a predictable pattern. It delivers double-digit revenue growth in a fiscal year in which it rolls out a revolutionary iPhone model. Then it follows that with two -- and lately more than two -- years of single-digit or negative top-line growth, settling for merely evolutionary smartphone updates.
Apple will close out fiscal 2026 at the end of this month, generating double-digit revenue growth for the first time in five years. It's already had a strong first three quarters through the end of June. The new iPhone 18 line, which hit the market on Friday, should cement its good fortune in the final frame of fiscal 2026. The story doesn't end there. Apple is about to do something that it hasn't done in 14 years, and it's riding on the priciest iPhone that it has ever released.
Just Duo it
When the iPhone Duo hits the market -- on Oct. 23, with pre-orders starting a week earlier -- Apple will be charging at least $1,999 for the new device. This is $800 higher than the iPhone 18 Pro it rolled out over the weekend.
It's easy to dismiss the expensive handset. Apple has priced itself out of contention before. Its Vision Pro mixed-reality headset hasn't found an audience with its prohibitive $3,699 price tag. Lisa, Power Mac G4 Cube, and HomePod are other historic cases of Apple flexing its product pricing elasticity and reaping the consequences.
I don't see it that way. The iPhone Duo will find its audience. The first foldable iPhone, with its convenient passport-sized profile when doubled up, will win style points. Leading wireless carriers will continue to subsidize smartphone purchases when tied to multi-year contracts, something that wasn't on the table for Apple's previous pricey flops.
As long as the iPhone Duo doesn't launch next month with a major flaw -- along the lines of those foldable screens cracking easily -- Apple will sell a ton of these in fiscal 2027. Analysts already see Apple revenue climbing 10.5% next year. If so, it would be the first time since fiscal 2012 that Apple delivers back-to-back years of double-digit revenue growth. Now that would be a Duo worth unfolding.
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Rick Munarriz has positions in Apple and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.