It’s been 10 years since Tim Cook took over as Apple CEO from co-founder Steve Jobs. In the ensuing decade, Cook took the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech company from a giant of Silicon Valley to the biggest publicly traded company in the world.
And for investors who have held Apple stock since Cook took the reigns, his tenure has been a massive financial success, with the stock delivering a nearly 1,200% return over the past decade.
If you invested $1,000 in Apple the day Cook became CEO in 2011, the market value of your shares would be worth $12,970.28 today, according to CNBC calculations. In contrast, a $1,000 investment in the S&P 500 index would have seen a 365.9% return over the same period and would be worth about $4,659.
Though he hasn’t introduced many new hardware products — the Apple Watch and AirPods, released in 2015 and 2016, respectively, are the two most notable new devices launched under Cook, with the rest coming in the form of annual upgrades to iPhones, iPads and Macs — Cook has boosted Apple’s profits by leveraging its massive, loyal user base into a recurring source of subscription revenue through services like Apple Music and iCloud storage.
Apple’s services business, which includes the Apple News+ magazine subscription service and streaming platform Apple TV+, raked in $2.95 billion in fiscal year 2011, a number that ballooned to $53.77 billion in fiscal year 2020.
Under Cook’s leadership, Apple has grown from a $364.4 billion market cap to $2.45 trillion, becoming the first publicly traded U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market cap in 2018, and hitting $2 trillion just over two years later.
But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Apple. The company has received criticism in recent years from users, rivals and Washington for a number of practices, including the 30% fee it charges on most App Store transactions.
But remember, despite Apple’s strong stock growth, any individual stock can over- or under-perform and past returns do not predict future results. Make sure to carefully research your options before investing your money in the stock market.
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