Last week Apple (AAPL) authorized an additional stock repurchase plan of $90 billion. This is the third year in a row the company had added $90 billion to its buyback program. This buyback represents around 3.4% of its market cap at announcement and brings its expenditure on stock repurchases to over half a trillion dollars in the past decade. In addition, Apple increased its quarterly dividend by 4% to 24 cents per share.
In fiscal Q2,2023, Apple spent $19.1 billion on share repurchases. The declining shares outstanding graph below clearly indicates that the company has been an uber cannibal by following through on its buyback announcements and repurchasing shares. Apple has retired about 16% of its outstanding shares over a five-year period and has spent a total of $573 billion on buybacks in the past decade.