Apple’s market valuation falls $140B in a day, slipping below $3 trillion after the company warned of a slowdown in iPhone sales

Apple has lost its title as the world’s only company with a $3 trillion market capitalization after the company warned it was headed for a fourth straight quarter of declining sales.

Shares of Apple closed 4.8 percent at $181.99, wiping more than $140 billion from the company’s market cap, in the stock’s biggest one-day percentage drop so far this year.

Apple shares fell primarily as the company said in an earnings report Thursday that demand for its flagship iPhone continues to slow, especially in developed markets.

While Apple remained the world’s most valuable company, that meant the iPhone maker lost the crown as the only $3 trillion company by market capitalization, a measure of value that adds up the price of all of a company’s stock.

Despite the decline in iPhone sales, Apple’s services business was a bright spot, helping the company beat earnings expectations for the June quarter.

“The services division provides a welcome buffer for the group, but Apple still needs to revive hardware sales growth or the market will worry about the next generation of customers joining its ecosphere,” said Dan Coatsworth, stock market analyst. at AJ Bell, according to Reuters.

“It’s time for Apple to launch something new and innovative, not just a variation of its core products.”

Apple’s shares have risen healthily this year, and even after Friday’s sell-off, they continued to rise more than 45 percent from January 1.

On June 30, Apple officially became the first company to cross the $3 trillion valuation mark.

While Apple briefly reached a $3 trillion valuation in intraday trading early last year, the company’s stock has never reached that closing valuation as it did in June.

Apple was originally the first company to cross the $3 trillion valuation threshold in January 2022, when stock prices briefly crossed $182 in intraday trading.

Since then, Apple has made large share buybacks, meaning fewer shares in the market and a higher share price is needed to achieve the same overall valuation.

Apple has announced $180 billion in share buybacks since May 2022, a move investors typically praise as it reduces the number of shares on the market, increasing the value of the remaining shares.

Since Apple doesn’t report on share buybacks on a daily basis, estimating the company’s market capitalization is a bit of an imprecise science, as the exact number of shares outstanding isn’t always obvious.

What is clear is that Apple is already the most valuable company in the world by a considerable margin.

Apple is followed by Microsoft ($2.5 trillion), Saudi Aramco ($2.08 trillion) and Google parent Alphabet ($1.52 trillion), according to ranking site Companies by market cap.

However, the most valuable public company in history remains the Dutch East India Company, which reached a valuation of about $9 trillion at today’s prices during the Tulip Mania of the 1630s.