“In July of 2012, plans were announced [by Apple] for a program of returning capital to stock holders via a stock repurchase plan and dividends,” J. M. Manness writes for Seeking Alpha. “Since then, almost $103 billion has been returned.”
“Since initiation, the dividend has been adjusted twice,” Manness writes. “But, while the dividends have gone up, the number of shares has gone down due to the buyback[s].”
“The result is that in spite of growing revenue and profit, since Q2-2014, the total dividend paid each quarter has slipped from the previous quarter,” Manness writes. “With record breaking sales, revenue, and earnings this past quarter, dividends as a percentage of earnings is at an all time low, just 15.4%… If Apple wants to keep the earlier ratios, then it will need to raise the dividends. My estimate is that Apple is likely to raise the per share dividend to between 62 and 65 cents per share from the current 47 cents.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: During their Q115 conference call with analysts, Apple CFO Luca Maestri stated that the company was “on track to announce an update to the program in April when we report our second quarter results,” so Apple shareholders will find out the dividend number soon enough. Earnings are estimated to be released on April 22, 2015.