At a Glance: The Q·Score

MSFT scores 8.7 ("Very Bullish") against AAPL's 7.6 ("Bullish") — a gap of 1.1 points on a 10-point scale. Both scores sit in positive territory, meaning neither stock is flashing red across the dimensions, but a gap of this size typically reflects a consistent edge across multiple categories rather than a single outlier. As the breakdown below shows, MSFT leads in four of the five dimensions, with the margin widest in Valuation and Sentiment.

Quality — Profitability and Capital Efficiency

Quality measures how efficiently a company converts revenue into profit and how well it deploys shareholder capital. AAPL posts a net profit margin of 27.2% and a return on equity (ROE — net income divided by shareholders' equity) of 141.5%. MSFT, by contrast, carries a net profit margin of 39.3% and an ROE of 34.0%. The margin comparison gives the edge clearly to MSFT — nearly 39 cents of every revenue dollar becomes profit, versus 27 cents at AAPL. AAPL's extraordinary ROE figure reflects its long-running share buyback programme, which has compressed the equity base on its balance sheet to a very small number, mathematically inflating the ratio rather than signalling superior capital deployment in the conventional sense. On the more straightforward profitability metric — margin — MSFT leads this dimension.

Health — Balance Sheet and Execution

Health captures financial resilience: how comfortably a company can meet its obligations and how reliably it delivers on earnings expectations. Both AAPL and MSFT share a perfect EPS beat rate of 100% — meaning every single quarterly earnings report in the measured period came in above analyst estimates — so neither holds an advantage there. Without current ratio or debt/equity figures in the available data, the EPS beat rate is the primary execution signal here, and it is a dead heat. Both companies demonstrate an exceptional track record of meeting or exceeding what the market expects from them quarter after quarter, which is a meaningful indicator of management's ability to guide and deliver. Health is effectively a tie between these two.

Growth — Revenue, Earnings, and Surprise

Growth looks at how quickly the business is expanding its top line (revenue) and bottom line (earnings). MSFT edges ahead here as well: revenue growth of 18.3% versus AAPL's 16.6%, and earnings growth of 23.4% versus AAPL's 21.8%. The differences are not dramatic — roughly 1.5 to 1.6 percentage points in each case — but they are consistent. For context, double-digit revenue and earnings growth at the scale these two companies operate (market caps of $4.3 trillion and $2.7 trillion respectively) is genuinely unusual; most mature large-cap technology companies would consider high single-digit revenue growth a strong result. Both firms are growing at a pace well above sector norms for businesses of their size, but the data gives the edge to MSFT in Growth.

Valuation — Price Relative to Fundamentals

This is where the gap between the two stocks becomes most striking. Forward P/E — the stock price divided by projected earnings per share over the next twelve months — stands at 30.5x for AAPL and 18.9x for MSFT. In the large-cap technology sector, a forward P/E in the high 20s to low 30s is not unusual for companies with strong growth profiles, but 18.9x is notably modest for a business growing earnings at 23.4%. The analyst consensus price target implies 7.3% upside from AAPL's current price of $293.08, compared to 53.6% implied upside from MSFT's current price of $365.46. That is a substantial divergence in how analysts collectively see the gap between current price and estimated fair value. The data gives the Valuation edge decisively to MSFT on both the P/E and the implied upside measures.

Sentiment — Analyst Consensus

Sentiment reflects how the professional analyst community is positioned on each stock. MSFT commands a positive rating from 95% of its 55 covering analysts — one of the more emphatic consensus readings you will see for a stock of this size. AAPL, covered by 42 analysts, has 62% carrying a positive rating. Both figures represent majority positive sentiment, but the gap — 33 percentage points — is significant. What makes the MSFT sentiment picture particularly notable is that it aligns with, rather than diverges from, the fundamental data: strong margins, faster growth, and a lower valuation multiple all point in the same direction as analyst enthusiasm. For AAPL, the more moderate sentiment reading sits alongside a higher valuation multiple, suggesting the analyst community sees less room for the price to run from current levels. MSFT leads this dimension clearly.

What the Data Shows

MSFT's Q·Score of 8.7 outpaces AAPL's 7.6 by 1.1 points, with the gap driven most visibly by Valuation and Sentiment — two dimensions where MSFT holds a commanding lead — and supported by a consistent edge in Quality (profit margin) and Growth. The one dimension that produced no meaningful separation was Health, where both companies share a perfect EPS beat rate. AAPL's higher ROE is a notable data point, but its mathematical origins in balance sheet structure mean it does not override MSFT's broader profitability advantage; the two stocks are genuinely close on Quality when margin is weighted alongside ROE.

Explore the Full Comparison

The live, interactive breakdown — updated in real time — is available at quantify.biz/compare/aapl-vs-msft.