In Apple’s fiscal third quarter conference call with analysts yesterday, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer stated that Apple’s cash on hand grew by 16% during the quarter to $76.2 billion.
That’s $12,192,000,000.00 added in one 90-day period.
The quarter ended nearly a month ago on June 25, 2011. So Apple most certainly has over $80 billion in cash on hand today.
If Steve Jobs felt like writing out a check, what could Apple buy with $80 billion?
What Apple could buy with their $80 billion:
• Disney‘s market value is $74.49 billion. (Jobs personally is already Disney’s largest individual shareholder.)
• Dell ($32.97B) and Sony ($26.78B) total $59.75B, so, oh what the heck, throw Yahoo! ($17.71B) in basket, too. ($77.46B total)
• HTC ($26.05B), Nokia ($21.59B), RIM ($13.81B), Motorola Mobility ($6.62B), and, whatever, Sirius XM Radio ($8.66B) and -giggle – AMD ($4.46B), too ($81.19B total. So, maybe Steve throws in some of his personal couch cushion change to cover Apple for a week or so on this haul.)
• At an average of a dollar each, roughly 1 out of every 3 hamburgers sold by McDonald’s – ever. (Or, just wait until the end of this quarter and get free burgers for life by purchasing McDonald’s itself ($89.52B).
Yes, we’re talking serious cash here.
As of this post, right now, Apple’s market value is $358.9 billion or nearly 11X that of Dell whose CEO, Michael Dell, was once asked what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple. Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
That’s not just a foot, that’s like two whole legs! How do they taste, Mikey?
With a market value of $358.9 billion, Apple is worth $8.66 billion more than “Wintel’ combined (Microsoft at $228.53B and Intel at $121.71B) which reminds us of a quote:
What I can’t figure out is why he [Steve Jobs] is even trying [to be the CEO of Apple]? He knows he can’t win. – Bill Gates, June 1998
Smirk.
Paybacks are sweet!
A small country?
But in all seriousness they could do us all a favour and buy a telecoms company (one of the big ones) and rid us all of the ridiculous roaming charges – especially in this the age of cloud computing where charges for accessing data on a mobile device in another country is this far removed from making me want to throw the phone out of the emergency exit on the plane ride..
If it were anything but my iPhone I think there’d be a few hundred phones of mine floating around in the Atlantic at this very moment in time!
I hope they do actually acquire one of the major international ones soon.. But I don’t see this as happening for another 5 years or so.. A cable company or two wouldn’t be a miss either.. The ATV Cable box with supersede BB and iTunes access..
Apple has been successful by being focused. Every telecom in the world wants apple’s products… they don’t need to buy a carrier, and buying a carrier would subject them to every petty law of every petty two bit mafia family run country– like brussels!
Instead of just quoting “Eyes to close to nose”, why doesn’t some reporter pick up the phone and ask him what he has to say now? Come on, some humble pie is in order!
advertising? No editor wants to shame a spender.
Hang on to the cash. Apple has been and will continue to use the money effectively for corning the market err, prepayment for critical components. In addition, the pile of cash is a prudent insurance policy for the recent epidemic of patent infringement lawsuits.
Fortunately, Jobs & Co. never waste cash on major “Balmer-type” acquisitions. They turn cash from today’s profits into more profits tomorrow.
Michael Babad of the Globe and Mail had the same idea:
What could Apple do?
Buy all the state assets Greece has put up for sale, and have change left over.
Give each and every American $247, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Buy Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS-N133.685.194.04%), as observers noted yesterday, and get picked on every time you do something.
Buy Iceland several times over (based on GDP), and then demand a bailout.
Buy Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM-T25.33-0.11-0.43%) and have a lot of change left over. (Or buy a hockey team and really rub it in.)
Buy Iceland?
Why skate to where the puck has been and all that? If Apple isn’t going to buy Adobe, why should they buy another country when they could establish their own.
Apple will have revenue placing it in the top 50 as a country (if compared to GDP) this year.
Perhaps a bank or two …….. And run them honorably for a change.
I’d put my money in that bank.
Actually, I haven’t put money in my banks for several years now. I put my money in the “Bank of Apple” stock and it’s the safest bank around.
Screw the rest of them.
Comcast ($67B)?
Since I have 3000 shares, $250,000 of that $80B is mine.
speaking of delusional…..
a whole paragraph of fail i do not want to start with. you sound like a bitter ex-Nokia employee or current shareholder.
Nokia was only a market winner because they sold cheap candy bar phones for 3rd world countries and for some time the US.
This is not 1999 anymore man, Nokia got caught blindsided by the smart(app)phone revolution.
You think Microsoft, whose slow train wreck into oblivion, is going to save Nokia? You better ask all about the other Microsoft partners first how that turned out for them. Microsoft did not even see this apple revolution coming.
Here’s why its not going away anytime in the near future:
iCloud, ecosystem, iTunes, iOS, ATV, Apps, and iphones. Nokia, or any other tech company has one or maybe two piece of puzzle, but not all them at once.
This was in making for many years. The other global tech companies can only fight for the scraps. They have a hardware piece, or a licensed OS… Nokia can not come back in power with a licensed OS. Apple changed the game completely, they lost the 90s. Instead they focused on what the future will be like, and planned accordingly.
Game Over.
How about buying Quicken? Mac users need a full-featured personal finance program — since Quicken seems to be abandoning the Mac. Or, Apple could invest a few million to write their own top-notch personal finance software.
Someone on here suggested I look at See Finance. I’m still looking but it has promise as does MoneyBank. There are others doing their best.
But yeah, how cool would it be for Apple to announce they’re going to write something to fill the gap.
Hell with that. Buy Intuit as a whole, incorporate all the best features of Quickbooks on the peecee into the Mac version… then drop support for the peecee version!
Amen
What about buying ATT and or Verizon!?
Hey! Save some of the money. Just buy 51% and you have the controlling share. You get 2X the buying power.
Or Apple could use its 80 billion to fund the federal government for 8 days.
Thanks, Tank. I just threw up in my mouth a little. Puts the size of government in perspective. To say it’s “BIG” is an understatement.
Or perhaps Apple could buy the US—cheap—when the budget runs out on August 2, then turn the entire country around to profitability within 8 days.
Then I woke up.
If you could stop your invasions and full spectrum dominance (puh lease children, grow up!) you could save most of your deficit. There’s got to be a cheaper way to advertise your main export! Hoho!
Buy Microcrap and shut it down…
Apple could run Finland for one year or so…
What would we do without an article about what apple should/could do with all it’s cash – every 45-60 days.
Holy cow…
E-freaking-nuff already!
I don’t like it when ‘professional’ writers or analysts write about it, but i think its more of a fun exercise when regular fans of Apple do it.
A network. They’ll buy a network. Watch. It will happen and they will crush the teclos and cable companies in one giant stroke.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/perlman-holy-grail-wireless/
throw billions at this tech and free the world of telcos i say…
Front billions to the large Cable/ISP operators for access as a virtual network, bypassing the Cable Cartel.
Buy global air time to play Ballmer Monkey Boy Dance and song “DEVELOPERS…” for 24 hours straight. I bet that will kill all future Window sales!
Buy Microsoft.
Sandbox Windows.
Get everyone on Unix.
I’m serious.
C’mon Steve, that would be the end game we all want.
If Apple can wait until I buy a few shares, they can take that 80 billion, close up shop, and return the money to the shareholders. Which is what I have been suggesting all along. Am I right or am I right?
@Michael Dell
Brilliant!
Payback’s a bitch isn’t it Billy?
Lock in long term contracts for delivery of dilithium crystals to energize the iCloud data centers ?
Apple is competing with competitors that own 90% PC industry. Heck! What it needs is cash. Lots of it. SJ has everything figured out.
Priceless mdn take. Poetic justice for this Mac fan since 1983 who witnessed Apple usher in the true personal computer revolution.