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Apple has a ton of cash, but how much is it really? We break down the numbers find out how much cash Apple really has.
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Apple’s Cash Reserves
As of September 2020, Apple had $191.8 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet. This cash pile is more than twice the size of the second-largest cash hoard, which belongs to Microsoft.Apple’s huge cash stockpile is the result of years of profitability and a conservative approach to financial management.
How much cash does Apple have?
As of June 30, 2020, Apple had $192.8 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet. This is down from $207.06 billion at the end of March 2020 and $237.59 billion at the end of 2019.
Apple’s cash holdings have fluctuated over the years, but have generally been on the rise since 2012 when it had just under $100 billion in cash and investments. Since then, the company has been aggressively repurchasing its own shares and paying dividends to shareholders, while still adding to its cash position.
In May 2018, Apple said it planned to give shareholders back an additional $100 billion through share repurchases and increased dividends. As of June 2020, the company had completed $85 billion of that plan and said it would continue to return cash to shareholders “on a regular basis.”
Apple generated almost $58 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2019 and spent nearly $21 billion on share repurchases and $3.6 billion on dividends. The company also has a large amount of long-term debt on its balance sheet, which totaled $106.5 billion as of June 2020.
How does Apple’s cash reserves compare to other companies?
As of June 2020, Apple had $192.8 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet. This gives the company a net cash position of $84.2 billion, meaning its total debt is just over $108 billion.
In comparison, Microsoft had $137.7 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet as of June 2020, giving it a net cash position of $78.9 billion. So while Microsoft doesn’t have as much cash overall, it actually has a higher net cash position than Apple.
Apple’s $192.8 billion in cash and marketable securities also dwarf the amounts held by most other publicly traded companies. Alphabet (Google’s parent company) had $117.9 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet as of June 2020, while Amazon had $46.1 billion and Facebook had $21.1 billion.
How Apple Generates Cash
Apple has a lot of cash. In fact, according to a recent report, Apple has more cash on hand than the U.S. government. So, how does Apple generate all of this cash? Let’s take a look.
Apple’s cash flow
Apple’s cash flow is the envy of the tech world. The company has more than $250 billion in the bank, and it generates billions in cash every quarter.
How does Apple generate so much cash?
Most of Apple’s cash comes from its huge profits. The company has consistently been one of the most profitable companies in the world, and its profit margins are among the highest in the tech industry.
In addition to profits, Apple also generates cash from its investment portfolio. The company has billions of dollars invested in bonds and other securities, and it regularly sells some of these investments to generate additional cash.
Finally, Apple also generates cash from its operating activities. This includes things like collecting payments from customers and paying suppliers. Apple’s strong financial position allows it to take advantage of favorable payment terms with suppliers, which further boosts its cash flow.
Apple’s profitability
While Apple is certainly a profitable company, it is important to understand how it generates its cash. The majority of Apple’s revenue comes from the sale of its iPhones, iPads, and other hardware products. However, a significant portion of its profits come from the sale of digital content and services through its iTunes Store, App Store, and iCloud services.
In recent years, Apple has been increasingly relying on its services business to generate profits. This is because the margins on digital goods and services are typically much higher than the margins on hardware products. For example, Apple likely earns a 70% margin on each song sold through iTunes, but it only earns a 30% margin on each iPhone sold.
Looking forward, Apple’s profitability will largely depend on the success of its new products and services. For example, if the new Apple TV+ service is successful, it could become a major source of profits for the company.
How Apple Uses Its Cash
As of June 2020, Apple had $192.8 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet. That’s a lot of cash! But what does Apple do with all that cash? In this article, we’ll take a look at how Apple uses its cash to benefit shareholders.
Apple’s share repurchases are one of the primary uses of the company’s cash. Apple has repurchased over $250 billion of its own shares since it started its share repurchase program in 2012. The company has also declared a 15% dividend increase, which will result in an additional $10.5 billion of cash being returned to shareholders in 2020.
Apple’s share repurchases have been a major driver of the company’s stock price. Since 2012, Apple’s stock price has increased by over 400%. The company’s market capitalization is now over $1 trillion.
In addition to share repurchases, Apple is also using its cash to invest in its business. The company has been on a spending spree in recent years, acquiring companies such as Beats Electronics and ITSM software maker Redmatica. Apple is also investing in original content, with plans to spend $1 billion on original programming by 2019.
Apple’s dividends
Apple had $245.6 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet as of the end of December 2018. That’s down from $285.1 billion at the end of September, but still up considerably from $163 billion a year ago.
Apple is using some of that cash to buy back its own stock and pay dividends to shareholders, but it still has a huge hoard. In fact, Apple’s cash and investments are now equal to about 27% of its market value, which is an unprecedented level for such a large publicly traded company.
Apple said it plans to increase its dividend by 16% this year and buy back an additional $100 billion of its shares. So Apple will likely have even more cash on its balance sheet at the end of this year than it does today.
Apple’s cash holdings
As of December 2018, Apple had approximately $245.8 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet. This accounted for roughly 29 percent of the company’s total assets.
Of this amount, $237.1 billion was held in overseas markets and was not subject to U.S. corporate income taxes. This created a large tax liability for Apple if it ever wanted to bring this money back to the United States.
Apple generated $61.1 billion in operating cash flow during fiscal 2018 and spent $32.2 billion on stock repurchases and dividends. This left the company with a net increase in cash of $28.9 billion for the year.
