According to Bloomberg, Apple currently has more than $165 billion (currently about 1.14 trillion CNY) in cash reserves. Given Apple’s current slowing growth, Bloomberg believes the world’s most valuable company will open a massive acquisition.
Unlike big acquisitions like Microsoft and Amazon, Apple prefers to acquire smaller startups. Apple prefers to cultivate and incubate its acquisitions, and it will wait patiently for these startups to grow to pry open new markets.
Apple’s business acquisition spending in fiscal 2022 is $306 million (currently about 2.105 billion CNY), down from $1.5 billion in fiscal 2020 (currently about 10.32 billion CNY). Apple chose not to disclose details about such acquisitions in its latest quarterly earnings report.
Apple has not been reckless in its acquisitions but has returned most of its excess cash to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends. Apple’s share of expenses to shareholders in fiscal 2022 totalled more than $100 billion. As of Dec. 31, Apple still had $165 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.
Logan Purk, an analyst at financial services firm Hantec (Edward Jones), said Apple has a knack for acquiring smaller, incremental acquisitions to achieve success.
