61,242,652 shares Apple Inc. 1.1 (percent owned) 6,747,000,000 (cost) 7,093,000,000 (market value 12/31/16)
166,713,209 shares Apple Inc. 3.3 (percent owned) 20,961,000,000 (cost) 28,213,000,000 (market value 12/31/17)
255,300,329 shares Apple Inc. 5.4 (percent owned) 36,044,000,000 (cost) 40,271,000,000 (market value 12/31/18)
250,866,566 shares Apple Inc. 5.7 percent owned) 35,287,000,000 (cost) 73,667,000,000 (market value 12/31/19)
907,559,761 shares Apple Inc. 5.4 (percent owned) 31,089,000,000 (cost) 120,424,000,000 (market value 12/31/20)
“Berkshire’s investment in Apple vividly illustrates the power of repurchases. We began buying Apple stock late in 2016 and by early July 2018, owned slightly more than one billion Apple shares (split-adjusted). Saying that, I’m referencing the investment held in Berkshire’s general account and am excluding a very small and separately-managed holding of Apple shares that was subsequently sold. When we finished our purchases in mid-2018, Berkshire’s general account owned 5.2% of Apple. Our cost for that stake was $36 billion. Since then, we have both enjoyed regular dividends, averaging about $775 million annually, and have also – in 2020 – pocketed an additional $11 billion by selling a small portion of our position. Despite that sale – voila! – Berkshire now owns 5.4% of Apple. That increase was costless to us, coming about because Apple has continuously repurchased its shares, thereby substantially shrinking the number it now has outstanding”
907,559,761 shares Apple Inc. 5.6 (percent owned) 31,089,000,000 (cost) 161,155,000,000 (market value 12/31/21)
“Apple – our runner-up Giant as measured by its yearend market value – is a different sort of holding. Here, our ownership is a mere 5.55%, up from 5.39% a year earlier. That increase sounds like small potatoes. But consider that each 0.1% of Apple’s 2021 earnings amounted to $100 million. We spent no Berkshire funds to gain our accretion. Apple’s repurchases did the job. It’s important to understand that only dividends from Apple are counted in the GAAP earnings Berkshire reports – and last year, Apple paid us $785 million of those. Yet our “share” of Apple’s earnings amounted to a staggering $5.6 billion. Much of what the company retained was used to repurchase Apple shares, an act we applaud. Tim Cook, Apple’s brilliant CEO, quite properly regards users of Apple products as his first love, but all of his other constituencies benefit from Tim’s managerial touch as well.”