ALBAWABA - Analysis by Markets Insider reveals that Apple has spent over $500 billion on stock buybacks over the last decade, specifically since 2012.
This amount surpasses the total market value of giants like Visa ($489 billion), JPMorgan ($446 billion), or Exxon Mobil ($441 billion).
In fact, only eight companies within the S&P 500 have a market cap greater than this figure.
In reality, Apple has been spending over $50 billion annually on its own stock repurchases since 2018. It expended $90 billion on buybacks in the past fiscal year and repurchased about $56 billion worth of its shares in the first nine months until last July.
Moreover, the board recently approved another $90 billion worth of buybacks, surpassing the total value of Citigroup ($85 billion) and nearly doubling the market cap of Hershey ($46 billion).
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Charlie Bilello, Chief Market Strategist at Creative Planning, has noted this pattern, indicating that Apple's buyback efforts have reduced outstanding shares by more than a third, from around 25 billion to fewer than 16 billion.
Warren Buffett, a long-time advocate of "wise" buyback strategies, has been a supporter of Apple's repurchase actions. His conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, holds almost 6% of Apple, representing nearly half of its stock portfolio valued at around $350 billion.
When Apple repurchases its stock, it strengthens Berkshire's ownership without any cost to the group. Buffett wrote in a shareholder letter in 2021, "Much of the money Apple has won't be needed to repurchase shares, a move I find both surprising and praise-worthy."
