Apple spent $85.5 billion to repurchase shares in its fiscal 2021, and more than $467 billion since 2012.
Apple capped off a stunning rise on Monday when it briefly became the first company to touch a $3 trillion market value before closing the day just short of the mark. The relentless rise of Apple’s stock speaks to the power of Apple’s capital return program. In the past years, Apple has been the biggest repurchaser of its own shares in the S&P 500 by far. Apple spent $85.5 billion to repurchase shares and $14.5 billion on dividends in Apple’s fiscal 2021 (which ended in September). Apple spends more on buybacks than other companies who repurchase a lot of their shares, including Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Alphabet, Bank of America, and Oracle. Share buybacks boost stock a company’s stock price by reducing the supply of shares in the market, effectively returning the money to investors through higher share prices. In addition, reduced share counts increase earnings per share, a metric used by many value-based investors to judge a stock. Apple started to pay quarterly dividends and repurchase its shares in March 2012. Since then and through last summer, Apple has spent over $467 billion on buybacks, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, which calls the iPhone maker the «poster child» for share buybacks.
