Apple paying out $0.24 per share Q4 dividend on November 16

AppleInsider

The Q4 2023 earnings report has arrived with Apple's board of directors declaring a $0.24 per share after another year-over-year revenue decline.

Apple earnings

It hasn't been the easiest year for Apple with a revenue decline across all four quarters of 2023. Despite that, the company is maintaining the same dividend rate for Q4 that it paid in Q3.

Apple on Thursday announced its Q4 earnings for 2023, with $89.5 billion in revenue, which is down from $90.1 billion in Q4 2022. The board of directors declared a $0.24 per share to be paid to stockholders.

Cash dividends will be paid on November 16 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 13, 2023.

Apple's fourth quarter tends to be an oddity for the company. The latest iPhones are usually announced and released late into the quarter. In previous years they were too late to make a material impact, but the earlier than normal release in 2023 is apparent in the earnings, given weaknesses in other hardware segments of Apple's businesses.

Another strong point is Services revenue, hitting $22.3 billion, up from $19.18 billion for Q4 2022. Revenue from Macs announced during WWDC will have had an impact, but clearly not enough as that sector is also down year over year.

The earnings conference call is held at 5 p.m. EST and will provide additional color on these earnings.

Read on AppleInsider

cincytee

At 96¢ annually, that's barely a 0.5% payout. I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the Apple board's generosity in not cutting the company's relatively feeble dividend. 

davidw

cincytee said:

At 96¢ annually, that's barely a 0.5% payout. I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the Apple board's generosity in not cutting the company's relatively feeble dividend. 

Apple has never decrease or increase their quarterly dividend payout on a quarterly basis since they began paying it in 2013. Apple has always increased (so far at least) their dividend payout with the announcement of their 2nd (fiscal year) quarterly earning report (at about the end of April). At that time, what ever the declared payout is for the quarter, will remains the same for next 3 quarters. So AAPL investors knows that their AAPL dividend will remain the same (most likely) with each quarter, regardless of how Apple performed for the quarter, until they announce their 2nd quarter earnings again, where they will declare the new dividend payout amount. This is also (AFAIK) when Apple announces the amount (in the tens of billions of dollars) of their cash reserve, that they will return to their shareholders in the form of dividend payout and stock buyback program. So Apple had already funded their dividend payout for a year, after they declared it.  

https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/aapl/dividend/

Having been retired for over 10 years now, I too would like to see my AAPL "feeble" dividend payout percentage increase as my now fixed income benefit greatly from my stock portfolio dividend payout. This so that I don't have to sell any of my stocks, to pay for what would be considered minor expenses when I was still working. But if I were still working and investing for my retirement, I would rather have Apple do what they a doing now with their cash reserve.  Which is this .......

https://www.thestreet.com/apple/stock/apple-spent-over-600-billion-in-10-years-on-this-controversial-initiative-was-it-worth-it-

If still saving for my retirement, I would rather not have to pay income pay tax on dividend that I most likely won't need and would had reinvested in AAPL stocks anyways, while hoping for more  long term gains in AAPL when I retire.  But already being retired, I'm more interested in increasing my disposable income, than any long term gains in AAPL, tens years down the line. But still, I can't complain about how my holdings in AAPL has increased in the tens years since Apple began their buyback and dividend program (including the splits), as low as the dividend payout has been (percentage wise) over the years. 

One can't really argue with success.

https://www.fool.com.au/2021/03/02/heres-why-warren-buffett-prefers-buybacks-to-dividends/

mpantone

cincytee said:

At 96¢ annually, that's barely a 0.5% payout. I'm not exactly overwhelmed by the Apple board's generosity in not cutting the company's relatively feeble dividend. 

Paying a dividend makes AAPL eligible for some pension plans and retirement funds that require constituent companies to pay dividends. Apple doesn't actually believe that Joe Investor will use the 0.5% payout to invest better than AAPL can in putting back into R&D, acquisitions, capital expenses, etc.

As always, AAPL investors are free to liquid part/all of their holdings if they wish to diversify their investment mix and receive a higher dividend yield, like AT&T (NYSE:T).

It's a mere formality, that's all. Don't read into it any further.

dogolaca

davidw said:
Having been retired for over 10 years now, I too would like to see my AAPL "feeble" dividend payout percentage increase as my now fixed income benefit greatly from my stock portfolio dividend payout. This so that I don't have to sell any of my stocks, to pay for what would be considered minor expenses when I was still working. But if I were still working and investing for my retirement, I would rather have Apple do what they a doing now with their cash reserve.  Which is this .......

As a fellow retiree, I prefer a low dividend (which gets taxed at the ordinary income rate) together with Apple's stock buyback policy which increases the stock price. If I need some income, I can sell a little of the stock (where the gain gets taxed at the capital gains rate.) 

 For me, anyway, the capital gains tax rate is less than the ordinary tax rate.

discountopinion

Hi all,

Super interesting discussion on dividend vs buybacks vs further business expansion.

It seems to me that AAPL is generating more cash from operations than they can scale management time to efficiently deploy into business operations, new products or accelerating other things. This bodes well for the upcoming AI war of attrition where large companies burn billions in capex as AAPL will have reserves in cash flow and holdings to deploy. Lots of dry powder.

Now i have not read enough to convince me that stock buybacks have been effective in increasing AAPL share price. Maybe the program has been a useful stabilizer of price to catch downward trends and buying the dips which may stabilize and smooth out dips. China’s govt is considering this for the Chinese stock market as a whole.

As a shareholder i would like to see increased dividends to at least 1%. The business seems to be able to absorb it and it would be a welcome gift to all loyal long term holders.

Doing amateur modeling on revenue mix projections and growth then i sense that there is an inflection point around 2026 where Services will contribute 50% of gross margins. As Services become increasingly dominant part of end results there is a much stronger argument for shareholder returns as dividends in my view.

I would love to see dividends reaching 3% by 2026, an increase of 6x compared to current levels.

Broadly speaking Apple is generating much more money than they have leadership attention, bandwidth and time to know what to do with.