retrogusto

Another benefit of the buybacks is that they are now saving $819,000,000 in dividend payments per quarter at the current rate due to all of those retired shares, and this number is just going to keep getting better. 

This is cool, but what I really want in my next iPhone is this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

macxpress said:

Why Apple doesn't buy Square is beyond me. I'd say this would be a good buy. 

I think they've been losing money since they started doing business. I looked into it about a year ago, just before the IPO, and at the time they were losing about half a million dollars per day, and as their business was growing, losses were accelerating. They had a big collaborative deal with Starbucks for three years, processing all of their credit card transactions, but they lost $20 million/year with that deal, so they stopped doing that. 

When they went public, the share price valued the company higher than some of its competitors who had actually already figured out how to make a profit, and the share price is slightly higher now.

Apple may be waiting until they run out of money and go bust, at which point they could pick up whatever parts they wanted more cheaply.