Here's How Much You'd Have If You Invested $1000 in Applied Materials a Decade Ago

How much a stock's price changes over time is important for most investors, since price performance can both impact your investment portfolio and help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another factor that can influence investors is FOMO, or the fear of missing out, especially with tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Applied Materials (AMAT) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to AMAT for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Applied Materials' Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Applied Materials' main business drivers.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Applied Materials is a leading supplier of equipment used to manufacture semiconductor devices, flat panel displays and solar photovoltaic (PV) products. The company also provides deployment and support services for the tools it installs at customer fabs.

Applied Materials currently reports results in two major reportable segments. Semiconductor Systems is the largest segment and includes equipment used in front-end semiconductor manufacturing, including the 200-millimeter equipment business, which moved into Semiconductor Systems beginning in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. Applied Global Services provides spares, upgrades, service contracts and other productivity solutions that help customers improve uptime, output and yield across a large installed base. Other category primarily includes the Display business and certain corporate activities.

Effective in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, management also began fully allocating corporate support costs to the operating segments. Prior-period results were recast to conform to the current presentation.

Applied Materials’ semiconductor equipment portfolio supports front-end operations in the chipmaking process. These steps involve the deposition or implantation of multiple thin layers of electronically conductive, semiconductive and insulating materials onto and within a silicon wafer, using photomasks, or reticles, to create multiple copies of integrated circuit devices.

With more than 33,000 systems installed, Applied Global Services supports customers through a mix of parts, upgrades and service programs. In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, more than 37,000 chambers were connected to the company’s AIx software capabilities for monitoring, diagnostics and predictive analytics.

Applied Materials has developed technologies for larger-sized wafers made of materials other than silicon. This has expanded its portfolio into equipment for thin film transistor (TFT) LCDs made from glass and OLED displays, which are used in smartphones, TVs and other consumer electronic devices. The company operates this business under Display, which is included in the Other category.

As a leading producer of specialized equipment, Applied Materials competes primarily with other large equipment makers, such a

Bottom Line

While anyone can invest, building a lucrative investment portfolio takes research, patience, and a little bit of risk. If you had invested in Applied Materials ten years ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

A $1000 investment made in August 2016 would be worth $16,008.01, or a 1,500.80% gain, as of August 27, 2026, according to our calculations. Investors should note that this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.

In comparison, the S&P 500's gained 253.88% and the price of gold went up 234.25% over the same time frame.

Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for AMAT.

Applied Materials is benefiting from AI-driven investment that is concentrating wafer fabrication spending in leading-edge foundry-logic, DRAM and advanced packaging, where its materials engineering portfolio has broad exposure. New process tools, rising advanced packaging demand and a larger connected service base support continued share capture and value-based pricing. Longer customer forecasts and planned manufacturing expansion improve visibility into another growth year, while recurring services and disciplined capital returns add resilience. Risks remain from capital spending cyclicality, reliance on large customers, China-related export controls, competitive intensity and the execution burden of scaling capacity. Even so, the current demand mix and margin trajectory support an Outperform view over the next cycle.

The stock has jumped 9.92% over the past four weeks. Additionally, no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 13 higher, for fiscal 2026; the consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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