Apple’s Stock Buyback Pace Hits Record $25.2 Billion

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Almost five year ago,

Apple

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on an earnings conference call that the company intended to reach a net cash position of zero over time.

When he made that promise in February 2018, Apple had $163 billion in net cash—the amount left over after backing out debt.

But as it turns out, Maestri wasn’t kidding around.

As of the end of the September quarter, Apple (ticker: AAPL) had reduced its net cash position to $49 billion.

And Maestri once again repeated his promise to eventually reach a net cash neutral position, as he has been doing quarter after quarter since his initial promise.

To reach that target, Apple has been astonishingly aggressive in buying back its own stock. In the September quarter alone, the company bought back $25.2 billion of stock, the most Apple has ever spent to buy back shares in a single quarter.

To put that in perspective, that is dramatically more than Apple has ever spent on an acquisition—in its largest acquisition ever, the company bought the headphone company Beats for $3 billion in 2014.

This quarter’s repurchase total is far more than the latest quarter sales of Macs and iPad combined. 

For the fiscal year ended in September, Apple bought back $90.2 billion shares, up from $85.5 billion in fiscal 2021, and the highest annual total ever. Over the last 10 years, Apple has repurchased $554 billion in stock, in the process reducing its share count by about 35%, adjusting for stock splits.

Investors could reasonably ask if that was the company’s best use of that much cash, but it would be hard to argue with the outcome: Over the last 10 years, sales have increased about 150%, adding nearly $240 billion of incremental annual revenue.

Apple shares over the last decade have appreciated 740%, crushing the S&P 500, which gained 173% over the same period.

And Apple isn’t done buying back stock just yet.

Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]