Apple Inc.

Tim Cook last day as Apple CEO: John Ternus takes over $4 trillion firm

Tim Cook’s last day as Apple CEO arrived on August 31, 2026, ending a run that began when Steve Jobs resigned in 2011. He led the company for about 15 years. John Ternus, the senior vice president of hardware engineering, takes over as chief executive on September 1. Cook announced the plan in April. He does not leave the company. Instead, he moves into the role of Apple executive chairman, where he will manage relationships with governments and policymakers around the world.

The move counts as a rare kind of exit for a company this size. Apple set the date months ahead. That timing matters. Sudden departures tend to unsettle markets, while a planned Apple CEO transition gives large shareholders room to price in the change.

How Tim Cook’s Apple tenure reshaped the company

Cook joined Apple in 1998 after Jobs met him and asked him to run worldwide operations. He became chief executive in August 2011, six weeks before Jobs died. Over Tim Cook’s tenure, the company grew from a business built on a few product cycles into a wider consumer technology operation. New categories arrived under his watch. The Apple Watch, Apple Pay, AirPods and Apple TV+ each launched during these years. Services revenue climbed past $100 billion, second only to the iPhone.

The financial record is direct. Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap. It passed $2 trillion in 2020 and crossed $3 trillion for the first time in 2022. The company reached $4 trillion in October 2025. Apple’s market cap now sits near $4.6 trillion, second behind Nvidia.

What Tim Cook’s last day as Apple CEO means for Ternus

Tim Cook gave a firm start date to his successor. John Ternus, the new Apple CEO as of September 1, brings a hardware background. He joined Apple in 2001 on the product design team and moved up to lead hardware engineering in 2021. Cook called him the right person to lead the company next. The question now is whether Ternus can keep the growth going while Apple works to catch up in artificial intelligence, the field where software learns patterns from data to answer questions or complete tasks.

Apple has moved slower than some rivals on that front. Ternus inherits strong finances and a loyal customer base, along with pressure to show progress on Apple Intelligence and Siri. Reports point to a foldable iPhone as one of the first big products of his era, along with plans for smart glasses. His first months will test whether the operating model Cook built can pair with sharper product engineering.

A quiet exit, on his terms

Cook framed the day with restraint. In a memo to staff, he said he was stepping away from a role he had loved deeply, and that he felt at peace with the decision. He keeps a seat close to the company. As executive chairman, Cook will steer Apple’s ties with President Trump and the Chinese government, work that shaped supply chains across his years in charge. Tim Cook closes one chapter, and the handover opens the next test for the world’s second most valuable company.

By Salma Al-Tamimi
3 min read

HNWI

HNWI Wealth 2026 Trends: Global Millionaire Count Reaches 25.3 Million

HNWI wealth 2026 trends center on a record year, with global high-net-worth individual wealth rising 8.7 percent in 2025 to USD 98.3 trillion. Capgemini Research Institute published the figure in the 30th edition of its World Wealth Report 2026. High-net-worth individuals, or HNWIs, hold at least USD 1 million in investable assets, not counting a primary home, collectibles, or consumer durables. Equity markets did most of the work, and easing inflation helped. The global millionaire population grew by almost 2 million people to 25.3 million. That was the largest single-year wealth increase since 2018.

Where the new millionaires came from

Asia-Pacific recorded the strongest regional result, with wealth up 10.5 percent and population up 9.4 percent as semiconductor demand lifted Asian stock markets. Japan added 436,000 millionaires, and China added 154,000. India gained 11,300, and Australia gained 18,100. North America saw its HNWI population rise 9.1 percent. The United States added 736,000 new millionaires, more than any other country, taking its total to 8.7 million. Canada’s HNWI population rose 6.7 percent, or roughly 30,000 people. Europe returned to growth at 6.5 percent after falling in 2024, helped by steadier equity markets.

Luxembourg posted a 13.5 percent increase and Germany 11.1 percent, while France and the United Kingdom recorded 2.7 percent and 2.6 percent. Africa grew 4.1 percent on higher precious metal prices, with Morocco the fastest at 16.8 percent. Latin America was nearly flat at 0.3 percent, though Mexico’s HNWI wealth rose 5.4 percent. The Middle East was the only region to contract, down 1.4 percent, as lower oil prices, regional conflict and labour market strain weighed on Gulf economies, the Capgemini report mentioned.

HNWI portfolio allocations move back toward equities

HNWI portfolio allocations shifted as markets rallied. Equities reached 25 percent of portfolios as of January 2026, up three percentage points on the year, on the back of strong corporate earnings and technology sector gains. Fixed income rose two points to 20 percent after bond markets delivered their best returns since 2020. Alternative investments, a group covering private equity, hedge funds, commodities, currencies, structured products and digital assets, slipped to 12 percent as public equities outperformed. Appetite has not faded. Two in three HNWIs, or 68 percent, plan to increase private equity exposure.

Gains clustered at the top. Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, those with USD 30 million or more, numbered about 250,000 after a 9.4 percent rise, and their wealth grew 9.7 percent. Concentration runs through the HNWI wealth 2026 trends data, with the top 1 percent of HNWIs holding 34.8 percent of all HNWI wealth.

What HNWI wealth 2026 trends mean for advisers

Clients no longer stay put. Exclusive relationships have halved in six years. In 2019, 39 percent of HNWIs used a single firm. By 2025, that share had fallen to 19 percent. Product access explains much of the move, with 88 percent saying they work with several firms to reach alternative investments. WealthTechs, single-family offices and robo-advisory platforms are taking share from established players. Kartik Ramakrishnan, CEO of Capgemini’s Financial Services Strategic Business Unit, called the period a clear inflection point for the industry and pointed to an estimated USD 1.5 trillion in new assets that moved to competitors of traditional firms between 2022 and 2025.

Operating models under pressure

Among the wealth management trends 2026 has brought into view, client experience carries the most weight. Only 17 percent of HNWIs call their advisory experience seamless and personalised, and 42 percent have had to repeat their goals to the same firm more than once. Nearly all firms, 97 percent, still sort clients by assets under management rather than by behaviour. Six in ten executives say their firms lack a single view of the client, which leaves work duplicated across teams. Advisers spend 41 percent of their time on operational tasks. Three quarters want AI-enabled systems to handle routine work, and 61 percent want access to a wider group of specialists. HNWI wealth 2026 trends suggest the payoff sits in retention, since 53 percent of satisfied HNWIs recommend their firm and 47 percent consolidate assets with it.

By Salma Al-Tamimi
4 min read

Telecom

e& UAE completes the world’s first eRedCap live network test for 5G IoT

e& UAE has completed an eRedCap live network test on its commercial 5G network, the first such test announced by any telecom operator. eRedCap, short for enhanced Reduced Capability, is a stripped-down version of 5G built for devices that do not need full 5G speed or power. The company said the result gives businesses and public bodies a practical way to move Internet of Things (IoT) equipment off older LTE technology and onto a 5G-native IoT platform.

What the eRedCap live network test showed

The eRedCap live network test ran on e& UAE’s live commercial network, not a lab setup. Engineers reached download speeds of up to 10Mbps on eRedCap devices while using a 5MHz slice of NR-FDD spectrum. A Data Transmission Unit, a module that sends device data across the network, confirmed the service worked from end to end. That narrow 5MHz channel matters. It keeps device hardware simple and cheap, which suits equipment made in large volumes.

eRedCap 5G IoT sits between two extremes. Full 5G handles phones and heavy data. Low-power options like NB-IoT handle slow trickles of data from simple sensors. Many devices fall in the middle. Smart utility meters, industrial sensors, fleet trackers, payment terminals, building systems, and some wearables need steady coverage and long battery life, not top speed. The technology targets that middle band. It runs on a 5G Standalone network, meaning a 5G core rather than one leaning on 4G underneath.

RedCap battery life is already improved on standard 5G. RedCap pushes it further. Because peak data rates stay low and the channel is narrow, a device can run 5 to 10 years on one battery, against 1 to 3 years for RedCap. That figure sits close to the low-power radio technologies many meters use today. On cost, coverage, and battery life, eRedCap matches LTE Cat-1 and Cat-1bis. That makes it an LTE Cat-1 replacement built for 5G, which matters as operators plan to switch off LTE and reclaim that spectrum.

What it means for enterprises

The step builds on earlier work. In 2024, e& UAE became the first operator in the Middle East and Africa to bring Ericsson’s 5G Standalone RedCap into a commercial network. eRedCap extends that effort to an even lower cost and power tier.

Abdulrahman Al Humaidan, Senior Vice President, Access Network Development at e& UAE, said eRedCap brings everyday IoT applications into the 5G era at the right cost, power, and coverage. He said proving the capability on a live commercial network gives utilities, manufacturers, logistics providers, and smart-city operators a credible path to scale connected devices and prepare for the shift beyond LTE. e& UAE’s eRedCap live network test points beyond a single demo.

The practical gain is fewer parallel networks to run. Firms can move more IoT use cases onto 5G Standalone instead of keeping separate paths for high-performance 5G and LTE-based devices. That can simplify how devices are managed over their lifetime and tighten security across large fleets. It also supports the long-term reuse of LTE spectrum, since not every device would need full 5G hardware to make the move. The eRedCap live network test gives that transition an early proof point on a working network.

By Salma Al-Tamimi
3 min read

Salma Al-Tamimi