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Apple’s smartphone market share jumped to a world-leading 20% in 2025

Here’s what Dan Ives says the iPhone maker has to do to reach Wedbush’s $350 price target this year.

Rani Molla

2025 was a great one for Apple, whose global smartphone market share jumped to 20%, besting Samsung and making it the top-selling brand in the world by shipments, new data from Counterpoint Research shows.

2026 could be a great one for Apple, too, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives — if the company focuses on four things the analyst laid out in a note Monday morning.

To reach Wedbush’s $350 price target, a 35% premium to where Apple is currently trading, Ives said the company must:

1) Make Google Gemini the “exclusive” partner for Apple’s AI strategy, which has heretofore languished using the company’s own models. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple plans to pay Google $1 billion a year to use its Gemini AI model to power Siri.

2) Release an actually good revamped Siri on time. That means the updated Siri, expected this spring, must finally deliver the personalized features and deep system integration Apple promised two years ago. Ives also expects Apple to launch an “AI subscription service” this summer that would function as an additional revenue stream for the company’s growing and lucrative Services segment.

3) Continue its iPhone 17 success with the iPhone 18. Ives thinks 2026 iPhone unit sales will “handily exceed current Street estimates,” which FactSet’s analyst consensus currently pegs at around 245 million, compared with about 233 million last year. Driving the success of the iPhone 18, Ives said, will be the foldable option as well as average selling prices, which he expects to rise $100 on Pro models.

4) Announce that CEO Tim Cook is staying on. Lately, news reports and prediction markets have rallied around Apple hardware chief John Ternus as Apple’s next CEO, saying the company has accelerated its CEO succession plans. Ives said that Apple must say otherwise and put a stop to that chatter since the company is in an “integral period for Cupertino to design and execute on its broader AI Revolution strategy.” Ives expects Cook to continue as CEO “at least through the end of 2027.”

Taken together, Ives sees 2026 as a long-awaited “prove-it” year for Apple — one where AI ambition, iPhone execution, and leadership stability all need to line up to justify the stock’s next leg higher.

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Rani Molla

Google’s YouTube maintains its top spot as streaming accounts for nearly half of all TV-watching time

People spent a record 47.5% of their TV-watching time on streaming platforms in December, according to new data from Nielsen, up from the previous record of 47.3% in July. Google’s YouTube once again was the most popular streaming service by time spent, but Netflix’s share inched slightly upward to 9% from 8.8% in July, while YouTube’s fell to 12.7% from 13.4%. The jump was largely thanks to “Stranger Things,” which was the most watched streaming title last month.

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Rani Molla

Amazon CEO says tariffs are inflating prices and buyers are looking for bargains

While the legality of President Trump’s tariffs winds its way through the courts, their effects are beginning to show up in prices.

During an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said he is starting to see tariffs “creep into” pricing, as some sellers are “passing on those higher costs to consumers in the form of higher prices.”

Jassy said that while consumers are still spending, they are becoming more price conscious.

“I think that wherever they can, they are trying to trade down in price — they are looking for bargains wherever they can find bargains,” he said. “I see people a little more hesitant on higher-priced discretionary items.”

Trump has maintained that other countries are footing the bill for his tariffs. But new research suggests Americans will ultimately be the ones paying those higher prices.

Amazon CEO Jassy says Trump's tariffs have started to 'creep' into prices

Amazon CEO Jassy says Trump's tariffs have started to 'creep' into prices

Jassy said that while consumers are still spending, they are becoming more price conscious.

“I think that wherever they can, they are trying to trade down in price — they are looking for bargains wherever they can find bargains,” he said. “I see people a little more hesitant on higher-priced discretionary items.”

Trump has maintained that other countries are footing the bill for his tariffs. But new research suggests Americans will ultimately be the ones paying those higher prices.

tech
Rani Molla

Musk: Tesla restarting Dojo supercomputer effort as “AI5 chip design is in good shape”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X over the weekend that the company plans to restart work on its Dojo supercomputer, dubbed Dojo3, saying that the AI5 chip the company had been developing is in “good shape.”

The Dojo supercomputer trains Tesla’s AI models, including the one behind its all-important Full Self-Driving tech. The company stopped work on Dojo in August. “It doesn’t make sense for Tesla to divide its resources and scale two quite different AI chip designs,” Musk said at the time. “The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training.”

“Pretty good” appears to be good enough.

In the interim, Tesla relied more on companies like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices for AI training. Restarting Dojo suggests Tesla plans to bring at least some AI training back in-house.

Musk also runs AI company xAI, which has its own supercomputer and a substantial business relationship with Tesla. A plurality of Tesla shareholders recently voted in favor of investing in Musk’s AI company, but the board declined to approve the measure because of a large number of abstentions.

Jon Keegan
1/16/26
OpenAI set to start rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users

OpenAI says user conversations will be kept private from advertisers, and answers will not be influenced by ads.

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Jon Keegan

EPA: xAI’s Colossus data center illegally used gas turbines without permits

The Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that xAI violated the law when it used dozens of portable gas generators for its Colossus 1 data center without air quality permits.

When xAI set out to build Colossus 1 in Memphis, Tennessee, CEO Elon Musk wanted to move with unprecedented speed, avoiding all of the red tape that could slow such a big project down.

To power the 1-gigawatt data center, Musk took advantage of a local loophole that allowed portable gas generators to be used without any permits, as long as they did not spend more than 364 days in the same spot. That allowed xAI to bring in dozens of truck-sized gas generators to quickly supply the massive amount of power the data center needed to train xAI’s Grok model.

The new EPA rule says the use of such portable generators falls under federal regulation, and the company did need air quality permits to operate the turbines. xAI is also using dozens of such generators to power its Colossus 2 data center just over the border in Alabama.

Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules

Elon Musk’s xAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules

To power the 1-gigawatt data center, Musk took advantage of a local loophole that allowed portable gas generators to be used without any permits, as long as they did not spend more than 364 days in the same spot. That allowed xAI to bring in dozens of truck-sized gas generators to quickly supply the massive amount of power the data center needed to train xAI’s Grok model.

The new EPA rule says the use of such portable generators falls under federal regulation, and the company did need air quality permits to operate the turbines. xAI is also using dozens of such generators to power its Colossus 2 data center just over the border in Alabama.

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