American multinational conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway Inc has bought an additional 75 million shares of Apple Inc. in the first quarter while dumping its remaining stake in International Business Machines Corp., Chairman Warren Buffett informed in an interview.
Buffet’s announcement has come just after Apple had reported its quarterly sales and profit rose higher superseding all analysts estimations in more than two years. The news also did away with fears in Apple shares amidst the concerns that its iPhone flagship was struggling to woe customers in the market.
Apple purchase which would otherwise cost between $11 billion and $14 billion, now adds to the almost 170 million shares that Berkshire Hathaway owned at the end of 2017 which was then Buffet’s biggest shareholding. The added stake would now witness Berkshire overtake State Street Corp. turning Apple’s third largest investor. Meanwhile, Apple stocks are trending up by 3.3 percent as reported in New York.
Buffet said in his media interview,
It is an unbelievable company, If you look at Apple, I think it earns almost twice as much as the second most profitable company in the United States.
Buffet said that he was “almost sure” of the fact that Berkshire owned zero shares in IBM sales in first quarter. The company had 2 million shares of the technology giant at the end of 2017, but Buffet had decided to sell down stake last year saying that his thesis failed when he ploughed more than $10 billion into IBM in 2011.
California based Technolgy major, Apple currently acquires more than its 60 percent revenue from iPhones and the services are playing a massive role to bring growth amidst overall smartphone market.
The Chief Executive Officer, Time Cook is focusing on growing a wide array of services through a base of more than 1.3 billion Apple devices including cloud storage, movie, music and apps. The revenues have witnessed a growth of 31 percent to a record $9.2 billion in the recent quarter.