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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought 75M AAPL shares in Q1, stake now worth $42.5B

Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate founded and run by Warren Buffett, bought an additional 75 million AAPL shares in the first quarter of the year.

The latest purchase takes Berkshire’s total stake in Apple to 240.3M shares, worth more than $42B …

Buffett disclosed the purchase to CNBC ahead of Berkshire’s annual general meeting, describing the company’s performance as ‘unbelievable.’

It is an unbelievable company. If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States.

Berkshire bought the shares ahead of Apple’s recent earnings report, at a time when there was uncertainty about iPhone X sales. Buffett dismissed those concerns – since shown to be groundless – as short-term irrelevances.

The idea that you’re going to spend loads of time trying to guess how many iPhone X … are going to be sold in a 3 month period totally misses the point. It’s like worrying about the number of BlackBerrys 10 years ago […]

Nobody buys a farm based on whether they think it’s going to rain next year. They buy it because they think it’s a good investment over 10 or 20 years.

It’s the second time this year Buffett has revealed a big AAPL purchase. Back in February, Buffett revealed that it had dumped over 90% of its IBM shares and substantially boosted its stake in the iPhone maker.

Buffett began as an Apple skeptic, saying in 2011 that the company’s long-term prospects were too difficult to predict. Berkshire subsequently bought a small number of Apple shares before a $1B purchase in 2016. He has explained the turnaround by saying that he now views Apple as a consumer brand rather than a tech company.

Photo: Norm Betts/Bloomberg News


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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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