AAPL vs GOOGL Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
Apple and Alphabet are both trillion-dollar technology companies that are foundational global technology platforms, but in different domains. Apple's moat is the consumer device and services ecosystem with extraordinary switching costs. Google's moat is information retrieval and advertising — Google Search processes 8.5 billion queries per day. Both face AI disruption risks (Apple Intelligence vs ChatGPT for Apple; AI search alternatives for Google) while simultaneously being AI leaders.
AAPL vs GOOGL is the consumer electronics and services ecosystem with 2B+ active devices and growing high-margin services (Apple) versus the world's dominant search and video advertising platform adding cloud and AI as growth vectors (Alphabet) — two of the world's most defensible businesses with different but equally exceptional competitive moats.
GOOGL holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. AAPL has delivered stronger 1-year price return (+41.01% vs +39.19%), though GOOGL has the better forward P/E setup (23.37x vs 34.70x for AAPL). GOOGL leads on both revenue growth (24.20%) and operating margin (34.03%), suggesting a stronger fundamental setup on both dimensions. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for GOOGL (+23.51%) than for AAPL (-1.99%).
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
- prefer the world's most valuable consumer ecosystem company with 2B+ active devices generating high-margin services revenue
- value Apple's Services segment as a growing, high-margin recurring revenue stream monetizing the enormous installed base
- want the strongest consumer brand in technology — Apple's pricing power and customer loyalty create durable earnings across product cycles
- are comfortable with iPhone market maturation in developed countries and China's competitive/regulatory challenges to Apple's market share
- prefer Google's advertising monopoly through search, YouTube, and the Display Network with 90%+ search market share globally
- value Google Cloud's 25%+ growth as a third major revenue stream becoming a significant earnings contributor alongside search and YouTube
- want a technology company with AI leadership through Gemini, DeepMind, and TPU infrastructure positioning it well for AI-driven search evolution
- are comfortable with antitrust regulatory risk from the 2024 search monopoly ruling and structural threat from AI-powered search alternatives
| Metric | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 59.4 | 64.2 |
| AI ranki | #185 | #91 |
| Latest closei | $337.00 | $347.33 |
| 1M returni | +8.70% | +0.91% |
| 6M returni | +35.36% | +13.09% |
| 1Y returni | +41.01% | +39.19% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $14.17K (+41.7%) started 2025-09-18 | $13.78K (+37.8%) started 2025-09-18 |
| 5Y ago | $24.55K (+145.5%) started 2021-09-20 | $25.28K (+152.8%) started 2021-09-20 |
| 10Y ago | $140.98K (+1309.8%) started 2016-09-19 | $88.18K (+781.8%) started 2016-09-19 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $4.85T | $4.24T |
| Trailing P/Ei | 38.15 | 17.39 |
| Forward P/Ei | 34.70 | 23.37 |
| Price/Salesi | 11.01 | 5.88 |
| EV/Revenuei | 10.44 | 9.27 |
| Analyst targeti | $325.66 | $428.07 |
| Target upsidei | -1.99% | +23.51% |
| Metric | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 16.40% | 24.20% |
| Earnings growthi | 28.70% | 294.00% |
| EPS growthi | +28.70% | +294.00% |
| FCF margini | +23.08% | +5.08% |
| Operating margini | 32.62% | 34.03% |
| Profit margini | 27.62% | 54.77% |
| ROIC proxyi | 148.75% | 48.68% |
| Return on equityi | 148.75% | 48.68% |
| Dividend yieldi | 0.33% | 0.25% |
| Payout ratioi | 12.04% | 4.26% |
| Dividend growth streaki | No increase yet | No increase yet |
| Betai | 1.08 | 1.24 |
| Debt/equityi | 78.44 | 18.86 |
| Current ratioi | 1.00 | 2.72 |
| Quick ratioi | 0.81 | 2.47 |
Over the past year, AAPL and GOOGL have moved barely in the same direction (correlation of 0.15), based on daily returns.
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | +41.67% | +37.81% |
| CAGRi | +41.72% | +37.86% | |
| Volatilityi | 25.00% | 31.41% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 1.35 | 1.04 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 1.98 | 1.66 | |
| Max drawdowni | 13.82% | 21.09% | |
| Current drawdowni | 0.91% | 13.73% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 4.91% | 6.98% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 6.39% | 9.08% | |
| Max daily dropi | 7.35% | 7.13% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 9.94% | 10.37% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | +140.55% | +151.58% |
| CAGRi | +19.21% | +20.29% | |
| Volatilityi | 28.04% | 32.15% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.61 | 0.60 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 0.89 | 0.88 | |
| Max drawdowni | 33.36% | 44.32% | |
| Current drawdowni | 0.91% | 13.73% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 9.07% | 13.54% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 11.71% | 17.56% | |
| Max daily dropi | 9.25% | 9.51% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 22.75% | 13.41% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +1191.20% | +777.53% |
| CAGRi | +29.16% | +24.27% | |
| Volatilityi | 29.11% | 29.58% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.87 | 0.73 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 1.28 | 1.07 | |
| Max drawdowni | 38.52% | 44.32% | |
| Current drawdowni | 0.91% | 13.73% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 8.10% | 9.72% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 11.19% | 13.74% | |
| Max daily dropi | 12.86% | 11.63% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 22.75% | 15.46% |
| Category | AAPL | GOOGL |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Apple Inc. | Alphabet Inc. |
| Sector | Technology | Communication Services |
| Industry | Consumer Electronics | Internet Content & Information |
| Core business | Apple designs, manufactures, and sells consumer electronics (iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, AirPods) and services (App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, Apple Pay, AppleCare). The iPhone generates ~50% of revenue and is the hub of the Apple ecosystem — a deeply integrated suite of hardware, software, and services that creates enormous switching costs. Services revenue (~25% of revenue) grows faster than hardware and carries significantly higher margins. | Alphabet is the parent company of Google, YouTube, Google Cloud, Waymo, and other ventures. Google Search is the world's dominant search engine, generating the majority of Alphabet's revenue from search advertising. YouTube is the world's largest video platform. Google Cloud is the third-largest cloud provider. Google's AI capabilities (Gemini) are being integrated across search, workspace, and cloud. Alphabet is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, with TPU chips and DeepMind as long-term AI leadership bets. |
| Investor focus | Investors track iPhone unit volumes and average selling price, Services segment revenue growth (the primary margin expansion driver), installed base of active devices (the foundation for services monetization), and Apple's AI integration strategy (Apple Intelligence). | Investors track Google Search revenue (sensitive to advertising market cycles), YouTube advertising growth, Google Cloud revenue growth (the fastest-growing segment), and Gemini AI integration progress in search and workspace. |
- The Apple ecosystem creates extraordinary customer loyalty — active device installed base of 2B+ devices with users extremely unlikely to switch due to ecosystem integration
- Services segment at $90B+ annually growing double digits with 70%+ gross margins dramatically above hardware margins
- Brand premium enables Apple to charge consistently higher prices than competitors while maintaining market share
- Google Search has a structural monopoly in information retrieval — 90%+ global search market share creates an advertising platform with billions of monetized queries daily
- YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine and the dominant video advertising platform across both user-uploaded and premium content
- Google Cloud growing 25%+ with AI workloads as the primary incremental growth driver as enterprises adopt Gemini for enterprise AI applications
- iPhone market saturation in developed markets — unit volumes have been flat to declining in recent quarters as upgrade cycles lengthen
- Apple Intelligence AI features require iPhone 15 Pro or newer — limits AI reach in the near term to a subset of the installed base
- China revenue represents ~20% of sales and faces increasing regulatory pressure and Huawei competition in the Chinese smartphone market
- AI-powered search alternatives (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Apple Intelligence) are the primary structural threat to Google Search's advertising dominance
- Antitrust actions (Google Search monopoly ruling in 2024) could require structural changes to Google's search distribution deals with Apple and others
- Cloud infrastructure capex is escalating rapidly — maintaining AI leadership in cloud requires enormous data center spending that compresses near-term free cash flow
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