Apple has made an insane amount of money over the past few years. The company’s cash pile continues to grow at a substantial pace. According to a new report, Apple’s cash pile has surged to over $250 billion. That’s a quarter of a trillion dollars. This is an enviable cash pile that’s almost unheard of, it’s greater than the foreign currency reserves of many countries combined.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is going to confirm the figure in its quarterly earnings release today. It will confirm that it’s sitting on cash reserves of more than $250 billion.
That’s more than the market value of both Walmart and FMCG giant Procter & Gamble put together. It’s even greater than the foreign currency reserves held by the United Kingdom and Canada combined.
It’s a safe assumption that Apple’s cash pile has crossed $250 billion because the last confirmed figure from Apple put it at $246.09 billion in December last year. It was racking up cash at a rate of $3.6 million an hour in the final three months of 2016.
Apple has already been under increasing pressure from shareholders to spend some of the cash it’s hoarding to further increase shareholder value. There are many ways it can do that one of which includes a special dividend.
Apple can also use the money that it has to buy companies, no wonder there are rumors of Apple considering an acquisition of Tesla or Netflix. Given the amount of money it has, Apple can buy both companies and still be left with cash in the bank.
It may even have to face mounting pressure to bring back some of that cash to the United States, considering that more than 90 percent of that $250 billion is held outside the United States.
Filed in ..