This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Key Points
- Since the tech giant's dividend yield is quite low, the short answer is: quite a few.
- Apple can't really be considered an income stock, but there are still powerful reasons for owning it.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is known for many things. One that isn't talked about so much is the dividend that it has been bestowing on its shareholders quarterly since mid-2012, when it reinstated a payout it had previously halted in the mid-1990s.
While we can't really characterize Apple as an income stock, as its 0.5% dividend yield is too low for consideration, the company does dole out a distribution on the regular.
A bite of the Apple
In mid-August, Apple declared its latest quarterly shareholder payout; $0.26 per common share. Annualized, this is $1.04 per share, meaning you'd have to hold at least 962 shares to earn $1,000 per year in disbursements.
All told, those 962 shares would cost a little over $223,722 at the most recent closing stock price (not counting seller commissions, assuming one's broker still charges such fees). Like the prices on Apple's always-premium products, that's a rather hefty-looking amount.
In my view, though, iPhones (which I've owned continuously since 2007) and iPads are quality products that are worth the relatively high expense. I feel the same way about Apple stock, which at first glance looks pricey given that its five-year price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio sits above 2.
Smart ownership
Since most of Apple's revenue is still, after all these years, derived from device sales, many investors and analysts are concerned about the sluggish revenue growth of this category. The smartphone market in general is long past its hot growth phases, with new models tending to feature essentially incremental improvements. Most smartphone owners upgrade them only occasionally these days.
The power and potential of Apple lies in its other top-line category -- services, which is stuffed with revenue generators like the App Store. The revenue growth for services tends to outpace that of products, to the point where it now accounts for 29% of the company's considerable top line. Such offerings are the sleeper growth engine of the company, and will continue to boost its fundamentals higher, in my view.
This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
