Alongside disclosing its earnings for Q2 2024, Apple also announced that it is increasing the dividend it pays to shareholders by 4%, and is also buying back more stock in one program than ever before.

During its quarterly earnings report, Apple's CFO Luca Maestri described "very high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty," as reasons for undertaking the company's largest-ever stock buyback.

"Given our confidence in Apple's future and the value we see in our stock," he said in a statement, "our Board has authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases."

"We are also raising our quarterly dividend for the twelfth year in a row," he continued.

The 4% increase in the cash dividend of Apple's common stock means a rise to $0.25 per share. Shareholders who own stock as of May 13, 2024, will receive the dividend three days later on May 16.

Most recently, Apple has tended to buyback its stocks in the region of $90 billion each time. That's what it did in May 2023, and before that in April 2022.

From 2012 up to the end of 2022, Apple spent in excess of $572 billion on share buyback programs. In 2019, Tim Cook revealed that it was investor Warren Buffett who taught both him and Steve Jobs on the value of buying back shares.