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Apple’s cash pile crosses $200 billion for the first time

Apple has just announced record quarterly earnings with $10.7 billion of operating profit. This revenue accumulation has resulted in Apple’s biggest ever cash hoard, now standing at $202 billion dollars. This is up from the record $194 billion level reported in the previous quarter and despite Apple giving away $13 billion to shareholders through its capital returns program.

In general, having too much money is a good ‘problem’ to have. What shareholders will think of this new high is yet to be seen, who generally prefer if Apple invested that money in its business or returned to investors in its dividend, rather than leaving it doing ‘nothing’. We’ll see if Apple addresses its cash pile concerns on the earnings call.

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Comments

  1. mferguson350 - 9 years ago

    And are they paying their fair share of their corporate taxes or weaseling it out of the country like all the others?

    • nonameisme - 9 years ago

      You really need to do some research mferguson350

    • prooke - 9 years ago

      I’ll give you a hint…. all the companies that use different countries for tax benefits and charge their own companies large ‘licensing fees’ to minimise profits where higher taxes are levied call what they do ‘the Apple method’.

    • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

      Most US based companies that do business overseas have been putting the profits from overseas in Ireland. It’s not weaseling. It’s just that the profits made in other countries was already taxed in THOSE countries and if they bring it in to the US, it gets taxed AGAIN and the US companies would be at a disadvantage because they would be double taxed. You want to pay double taxes on your income just because you did business in another country? The US charges outrageous amounts of taxes for money brought into this country. It almost makes it not worth doing business in other countries if the profits are going to get taxed to the point where you can’t make any profit.

      Apple, BTW, is one of the biggest tax payers out of ALL US companies. Go look at their financial statements and look up how much they paid in taxes.

      Last year, they paid about $14 Billion in taxes. Since they brought in $53 Billion in gross profits, I think paying $14 Billion in taxes is enough. What do you think?

      Go find any other company that paid $14 Billion in taxes for 2014. Go ahead. Apple paid more in taxes than Google made in Net Profits. Put THAT in perspective.

    • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

      FYI, the profits they keep in Ireland are invested and the profits from the investments are brought into the US and is taxed, so they only bring in the profits from the money that’s invested. But Apple is also using the profits overseas to do several things. Build more Apple Stores, Build Support call centers, distribution centers, data centers, acquiring other companies in foreign countries, and I believe they are now working with Foxconn to build mfg plants in India to serve those markets. So a lot of the profits overseas are used to expand the company in those other countries. It makes ZERO sense to bring the profits into the US, get taxed, and the move the money back overseas for expansion and acquisitions, so it makes perfect sense to keep that money overseas. remember, many countries charge taxes just to move money from one location to another, which I feel are chicken $hit taxes. What would happen if you moved from the US to another country that other country took 30% or more of your money from the simple transition that you are moving from one bank to another in other countries. These countries are simply overspending what money they get and they are always looking for new sources of money because they can’t spend what money they get wisely. I wish I could do that. Wouldn’t it be nice to get more income because you overspent what income you got? We, as individuals can’t do that but Governments get away with that all of the time.

      If the US wants to encourage more growth in US companies doing business overseas, then they should not charge so much taxes for profits made in other countries when they are moved into the US.

  2. dvinder42 - 9 years ago

    could have paid for the greek bailout…and then some

  3. acslater017 - 9 years ago

    Buy the Gigafactory! Or make your own :P

  4. Apple has green field what to do with cahs pile. It can go the IBM way – repurcahse the shares or go the Elon Musk way and invest in Tesla and or Space. Or better still create a APPLE city (Smart City) and leave a legacy

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.


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