Apple’s $110 billion share buyback announced Thursday is large, but the iPhone maker already dominates the league table of companies with the S&P 500’s largest share buybacks in dollar terms. In the past 12 months, Apple has repurchased $84.5 billion of its stock. This is significantly higher than other companies in the S&P 500. Repurchase leaders (past 12 months) Apple $84.5 billion Alphabet $62.6 billion Meta $34.5 billion Microsoft $18.7 billion Exxon Mobil $16.4 billion Chevron $14 billion Visa $13.2 billion T-Mobile $12.3 billion Comcast $11.7 billion Marathon Petroleum $10.6 billion Source: S&PDowJonesIndices Apple is a stock buyback monster The company has been actively buying back its own shares (and reducing the number of shares) since 2013. From 26.2 billion in 2013 to 15.3 billion now, a decrease of 41%. Apple doesn’t just dominate the total stock buybacks these days. This completely dominates the largest quarterly share buyback ever undertaken. Largest quarterly share buyback in history Apple (Q4 2020) $27.6 billion Apple (Q2 2021) $25.6 billion Apple (Q3 2022) $24.7 billion Apple (Q2 2022) $24.5 billion Dollars Apple (Q1 2019) $23.8 billion Source: S & PDowJonesIndices Share buybacks are the preferred mode Return of cash In recent years, share buybacks have become the preferred method of returning cash to shareholders. 2023: What U.S. companies did with their cash flow Share buybacks $765 billion Capital spending $597 billion Dividends $588 billion Source: S&P Global The reason is that companies’ cash flow has improved and they are choosing to buy back more shares than pay dividends. This is because it is considered more flexible. Stock buyback: Increase? (Share buybacks) 2024 (estimated) $925 billion 2023 $815 billion 2022 $950 billion 2021 $919 billion 2020 $538 billion 2019 $749 billion Source: Goldman Sachs
