Apple Hikes Share Buyback by $50 Billion

Apple’s second-quarter earnings are in, and it’s a beat. Not exactly the downturn in numbers the street was expecting.

There’s even better news for shareholders: The company is boosting its dividend by 15 percent, adding a healthy $50 billion, the “largest single share repurchase authorization in history,” according to the company. Apple expects the full execution of $100 billion under the program to be finished by the end of 2015.

“We are very fortunate to be in a position to more than double the size of the capital return program we announced last year,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We believe so strongly that repurchasing our shares represents an attractive use of our capital that we have dedicated the vast majority of the increase in our capital return program to share repurchases.”

That’s a far cry from what analysts were expecting. If Apple had missed its earnings this quarter, many on the street thought the company might boost its buyback to deter the focus on a bad quarter. Instead, the company made good by its shareholders while delivering an impressive beat.