We are very fortunate to be in a position to more than double the size of the capital return program we announced last year. We believe so strongly that repurchasing our shares represents an attractive use of our capital that we have dedicated the vast majority of the increase in our capital return program to share repurchases."
- Apple CEO Tim Cook, April 2013
Apple's share buyback program is proving to be quite a bit larger than originally conceived.
Though its original plan called for the repurchase of 10 million shares in its third fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple instead bought up 36 million shares. It spent about $16 billion* to do so, buying up shares at an average price of between $444 and $488, according to some back-of-the-napkin math by Apple 2.0 and Asymco.
A massive purchase, indeed. For the same money, Apple could have acquired Nokia. Or BlackBerry and HTC together, with cash left over. As Dediu quips, "One way to think of it, is this is Apple's greatest acquisition ever."
Clearly, Apple has a very bullish view of its own future, and is confident that its share price is headed upward - despite the beating it has taken in the past few months.
* $4 billion in cash + $12 billion via an accelerated share repurchase program
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