How to Invest in Apple Stock

Apple's investments, products, and VR launch

Today, many of us hold an Apple-branded computer product in the palm of our hand. The company has developed many widely successful products, like the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Apple continues to invest heavily in product innovation to upgrade its offerings and stay ahead of the competition. In 2024, it launched a new virtual reality (VR) headset, the Apple Vision Pro. The new product could help drive more growth for the consumer technology product giant.

In addition to technology products, Apple has a growing services business (e.g., iCloud, AppleTV+, and Apple Music). The company's streaming platforms, cloud solutions, and other services generate recurring revenue, helping offset some of the variability of product sales. The company is also an early leader in artificial intelligence (AI), launching Apple Intelligence in 2024.

The company's service offerings are growing faster than product revenue. And they deliver higher-margin revenue for Apple, making them an important profit growth driver.

The Apple ecosystem of products and services has created unparalleled customer loyalty. Apple fans often purchase the latest version of its iPhone as soon as it's available. They stay subscribed to its growing number of services, helping steadily increase revenue, earnings, and cash flow. The growth should enable Apple stock to continue its upward climb.

Here's a step-by-step guide on buying shares of Apple and some factors to consider before investing in the technology stock.

How to buy Apple stock

You can buy shares of Apple in any brokerage account. If you still need to open one, these are some of the best-rated brokers and trading platforms. And if you've never placed a trade before, check out our guide to six steps for buying stocks.

Here's an example of how to buy Apple stock using the five-star-rated Fidelity platform, which makes it easy to buy stocks. Its website offers a video tutorial and a step-by-step guide. The screenshot below shows what it looks like to place a stock trade with Fidelity:

Should I invest in Apple?

Before investing in Apple, you need to determine whether the company's stock is a good fit for your portfolio. Here are some reasons why you might want to consider buying Apple stock:

1. You love Apple's products and want to invest in the company that makes them.
2. You believe Apple's shares can continue to outperform the S&P 500.
3. You understand how Apple makes money.
4. You think Apple can continue developing innovative products that increase its revenue, income, and free cash flow at a healthy rate.
5. You believe Apple can continue growing its higher-margin services offerings at a strong pace.
6. You want to invest in a financially strong company.
7. You want to earn some dividend income and believe Apple can continue growing its payout.
8. You think Apple does a great job allocating its copious cash flows to increase shareholder value, including its preference for share repurchases.
9. You believe Apple's strategic investments in digital content, payment processing, cloud services, and advertising will accelerate growth.
10. You have faith that CEO Tim Cook can continue growing shareholder value.
11. You understand the risks of investing in Apple stock, including that it could lose value.
12. You think the 2024 release of Apple's new Apple Vision Pro will be a catalyst to drive the company's profits and stock price higher.

On the other hand, here are some factors to think about that might lead you to decide against buying Apple stock:

1. You're not a fan of Apple's products.
2. You're not sure Apple can outperform the market.
3. You think Apple's days of product innovation are in the rearview mirror.
4. You need a higher dividend yield than Apple currently offers.
5. You are a younger investor and want to invest in a company earlier in its growth cycle than Apple.
6. You're worried about the economy and think a recession could affect demand for Apple products.
7. You're concerned that a competitor could start eating into Apple's dominant share of the smartphone market.
8. You don't think Apple's VR headset will move the needle for the company's earnings or stock price.

Is Apple profitable?

Income growth helps fuel stock price appreciation over the longer term. It's an ideal area for beginning investors to focus on before buying shares of any company.

Apple is an extremely profitable company. It recorded $296 billion in revenue and $79 billion in net income during the first nine months of its 2024 fiscal year. While revenue was only up about $3 billion compared to the prior-year period, earnings per share grew by more than 9%.

The company posted record revenue in its fiscal third quarter of 2024. The tech titan noted that the installed base of its active devices reached an all-time high in the period ending June 2024. Apple's steadily rising profits have helped drive its stock price skyward over the years:

Does Apple pay a dividend?

Apple has paid a dividend on its stock since reinstating the dividend payout in 2012. The company started paying dividends in 1987 but suspended the payout in 1995.

Since reinstating the shareholder payout more than a decade ago, Apple has increased its dividend every year. Apple paid $11.4 billion in dividends in the first nine months of fiscal 2024 -- it was one of the top 20 largest global dividend payers in the second quarter of 2024.

In addition to paying dividends, Apple repurchases a significant amount of its stock each year. It spent almost $70 billion on share repurchases in the first nine months of fiscal 2024. The repurchases help to steadily reduce its outstanding shares.

ETFs with exposure to Apple

Instead of actively buying Apple shares directly, you can passively invest in the technology company through a fund holding its shares. As of mid-2024, Apple was the world's biggest company by market capitalization, at more than $3 trillion. Because of its huge market cap, it's a very widely held stock.

Apple is in several stock market indexes, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index. As a result, index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that benchmark their returns against those indexes hold Apple stock.

Given its gargantuan size, even the world's largest ETFs have a meaningful portfolio weighting to Apple stock. Of the top five ETFs by assets under management, the Invesco QQQ Trust has the highest portfolio weighting to Apple, at more than 9%, making the fund a potentially attractive way to gain passive exposure to Apple stock.

Another relatively large ETF with an even higher portfolio weighting to Apple stock is the Vanguard Information Technology ETF (NYSEMKT:VGT). At 17% of the fund's holdings, this gives investors even greater exposure to Apple stock.

Will Apple stock split?

As of mid-2024, Apple had yet to announce an upcoming stock split. Here's a snapshot of Apple's stock split history:

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