“On February 16, Apple will pay shareholders of record a quarterly dividend of $0.57 per share, but investors must own the company’s stock before February 9 in order to qualify,” Daniel Eran Dilger reports for AppleInsider. “Apple will pay out $3.1 billion in dividends on its outstanding shares for the quarter.”
“The February dividend will be the eleventh to occur since the company issued a 7-for-1 stock split. That split also converted the dividend from $3.29 per share to 47 cents per share, which Apple subsequently increased last year to 52 cents,” Dilger reports. “February’s dividend will be the fourth 57 cent dividend Apple has paid since it announced plans to increase its dividend from 52 cents during its Q2 2016 earnings conference call.”
Dilger reports, “Over the past four quarters, Apple has paid out around $12 billion in dividends to its shareholders, distributing close to $3 billion every quarter, although that number has decreased slightly in tandem with the company’s stock buybacks…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hopefully, Apple’s capital return program will get even more aggressive after tax repatriation (holiday or, better yet, real corporate tax reform) that’s expected with the new U.S. administration and congress.
as an AAPL long w/ a significant holding (thanks to three splits), I’d rather the company not “cripple” the product line (i.e. routers, “real” mac pro’s w/ ports and ability to expand, monitors, etc.) which is the reason I bought the stock in the first place
Just curious…where does the “long” distinction start?”
three stock splits means I’ve been luck to have AAPL since the late ’90s
Invest $132 (todays price) and get 57cents. Am I supposed to be impressed?
Try getting that from your bank every 3 months for $132. What on earth were you expecting?
More than 1.72% give the hundreds of billions that they have and the fact that they are not spending any on MacPros and ports on MacBooks.
I have about 40k in cash accounts earning rates of 2-6%, you could just about get the same 1.72% rate on more cash in a savings account. Admittedly I don’t invest in Apple just for the dividends, but it’s hardly an earth shattering return.
You don’t understand how this works, do you.
That’s for one quarter. Over four quarters, that comes to 1.72%. What are banks and CDs paying today?
CDs are very low risk. Give the lack of performance on APPL, and pipeline Timmy, Apple can’t say the same.
I get 7% on my money and it’s in municipals
You get .57 each quarter. $2.28 for the year. About 1.7% at this $132. If you hold that share for 10 years and they increase the dividend 10% a year, you’ll get about $7.00 a share interest a year. That’s about a 5% dividend on your original investment. Not including if you reinvested those dividends back via DRIP.
Cook: How about returning only $3 billion to shareholders and putting the rest into developing desktop and laptop Macs that are worthy of the Pro name?
Make investing great!
Companies should pay out on a quarterly basis 80% of the profits made. If a company wants to pay no taxes then they should day out 90%. This will put the money in the hands of the true god creator, consumers.
It’s the shareholders’ money.
Bob, someone who posts on this site believes that if you’re an AAPL shareholder and actually WANT to be paid a 1.7% dividend, then you are GREEDY and probably will only waste that money on beer and chips. In that person’s mind, what’s left of it, Apple’s gargantuan cash horde is THEIRS to do with as THEY please, not you or loyal investors. Truly, financial imbeciles can be found all over the internet.
The dividend yield is the annual dividend divided by current share price. It is a financial ratio. Except once you buy shares, it does not seem all that informative. It is more fun to calculate _your_ dividend yield: the ratio of the annual dividend to the price you paid for your Apple shares.
I bought some Apple shares in Spring 2003 at a (now) silly low price. The current Apple annual dividend is more than 2x what I paid to buy each of those shares. That is a dividend return of 200% of my capital investment. Not bad. (Except the real money was in the share appreciation… Still and all, the dividends are nice.)
Lastly, Apple seems to increase its dividend payout by about 10%. So if you don’t like $0.57 per quarter, just wait a while, as it will likely be more. (But if the share price goes up, too, the dividend payout will _still_ look crappy.)
Those who buy get a chance to receive more dividends and more share appreciation. Those who do not buy get to complain that the dividend yield always seems to looks crappy. Who’d you rather be?
I agree, Bob. If Apple, Inc wants to amass a small nation’s ransom here and abroad, fine: As long as they buy back our shares FIRST with their own money, then they can do a “Michael Dell” and do whatever they want with the company! Until then, Apple employees do NOT own the company. Shareholders do. Fact.
I’m happily using those dividends to pay my monthly bills. As I’m retired, those dividends are like a steady income for me. Sure, I can always wish for more but I’ll take whatever I can get. If Apple can manage to find a way using their cash horde to make more revenue to increase those dividend payments, more power to them.
Hoard, not horde. Filling in for the grammar police. Spelling police, whatever. Missing the point is our specialty, thank you very much.
First time I have not heard you whine in a long time, dude. Glad you are happy …for now at least.
Remember, though, that If you can’t stand the excitement, you really should not be in he stock market.
Note that the dividend payment will reduce the value of the stock by an equivalent amount.
Therefore you will essentially not gain anything from the dividend but instead have cash plus the stock at the same combined value.
Dividends are good for income providing that the stock does not diminish in value. I personally reinvest the dividends since it increases the stock on hand and over the long term the stock has increased in value. Now currently up 1300% over 10 years.
The Buybacks have been money down the drain, pay dividend and save the money.
holly smokes 1300% … I like it a lot congrats !!!
it’s quite possible for THIS FREE CASH FLOW MACHINE to double its dividend every 5 years…..