Not too long ago, Apple announced that they would be dishing out $2.65 per share to regular Apple stockholders, but even those within Apple that own restricted stock units will be getting a little something. By way of a securities filing, Apple has announced that those with RSUs (which aren't normally eligible for dividends) will get dividend equivalents, though with all of the same vesting periods, taxes, and other restrictions as usual. Interestingly enough, Apple CEO Tim Cook has declined to participate in the dividend equivalents, which would have netted him around $75 million.

The idea here is that Apple wants to make sure that employees remain properly incentivized by stock options, and have just as much of a vested interest in Apple's success as any other shareholder. As for Tim Cook turning down $75 million (before taxes, mind you), the gut reaction is to slather on praise, but considering he just cashed in a whole bunch of stock, money probably isn't a top concern right now, and the good will towards his employees is invaluable.

Source: MacRumors

We've seen plenty of research showing just how profitable Apple is and how much market share they've claimed in the worlds of smartphones and PCs, but a new infographic really puts Apple's obscene cash flow into perspective. Some of the figures dug up by the creator, a gadget price and feature comparison site called Sortable, are really interesting. For example, Apple has enough money to buy RIM, Nokia, Twitter, Adobe, Netflix, and T-Mobile and still have cash leftover. Apple has also beat Wall Street estimates for 16 out of the last 17 quarters. Many of the other figures are ones that we've seen before, only these are presented all pretty-like.

Here's the infographic (click to enlarge), and just below it is a recent video detailing some of the ridiculous things Apple could do with its cash reserves.

Scott Forstall, Apple's high-profile Senior Vice President of iOS software, has sold off $38.7 million-worth of previously-restricted Apple stock according to recent security filings. Forstall had sold off about $33 million-worth of stock in March when the restriction first lifted, and the final sale here here leaves him with 5% of the 120,000 shares he was first given in 2008. Forstall still has another 100,000 restricted stock units that will be ready to sell in 2014 and another 150,000, half of which will vest in 2013 and the other in 2016.

While it may seem odd at first glance that Forstall would sell of so much stock now, with so much more of that juicy restricted stock lying ahead, it's easy to see him enjoying this lot of cash now and still sticking with Apple for the long haul.

Just like the first wave of stock sell-offs, it wouldn't be surprising to see other Apple execs cashing in sometime soon as well. Millard Drexler, who serves on Apple's board of directors, sold off a bunch of stock too for a total of $23.7 million.

Scott Forstall came to Apple from NeXT, which also brought Steve Jobs back to the company (along with almost all the new generation of Apple executives). Because of both the growing importance of iOS to Apple, and Forstall's political acumen, he has been rumored to be in line to be Apple's CEO once Tim Cook is done. Whether or not that ends up being the case, there's no doubt that Forstall's profile within Apple has risen as stratospherically as the iPhone and iPad themselves.

So with over $70 million in newly redeemed cash on hand, that just leaves one question -- what will he spend it on? Monster yacht? Jumbo jet? One of each hypercar on the Top Gear top lap list? A Cobra Commander style underwater headquarters? What would you spend it on?

Source: SEC via Fortune

This morning AT&T issued their Q1 2012 financial results, where they casually mentioned that of the 5.5 million smartphones sold, 4.3 million were iPhones (and 21% were new to AT&T). Though they didn't mention exactly how many Android phones were sold by comparison, it would be under 1.2 million, assuming they sold a negligible number of BlackBerry and Windows Phone handsets. Even among other carriers, AT&T is doing pretty well.

>"We continue to capitalize on our terrific momentum in mobile Internet," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. "Smartphone and branded computing device sales continue to set a record pace, mobile data revenues were up nearly 20 percent, and we achieved this growth with expanding margins. These results add confidence in our outlook for the year."

>- $0.60 diluted EPS compared to $0.57 diluted EPS in the first quarter of 2011 >- Consolidated revenues of $31.8 billion, up $575 million, or 1.8 percent, versus the year-earlier period >- Wireless operating income margin up to 27.2 percent; wireless EBITDA service margin up significantly to 41.6 percent even with strong smartphone sales >- More than $2 billion in stock buybacks; 67.7 million shares repurchased >- AT&T's growth engines — wireless, wireline data and managed services — represented 78 percent of total revenues and grew 6.2 percent versus the same quarter a year ago, led by: >- 19.9 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up more than $1 billion versus the year-earlier quarter >- 19.0 percent growth in strategic business services revenues >- 38.2 percent growth in consumer U-verse revenues >- Smartphone sales of 5.5 million, exceeding the previous first-quarter record, with about 30 percent of all postpaid smartphone subscribers on 4G-capable devices >- 726,000 total wireless net adds, with gains in every customer category >- Postpaid wireless churn of 1.1 percent, lowest level in seven quarters >- Record first-quarter branded computing (tablets, tethering plans, etc.) net adds of 460,000 to reach a total of 5.8 million, up almost 70 percent versus a year ago >- Postpaid wireless subscriber ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber), up 1.7 percent to $64.46

AT&T also managed to outsell rival Verizon, who pushed 3.2 million iPhones, and 21% of iPhone buyers were new AT&T subscribers. Despite being a 43% drop compared to Q4, when the iPhone 4S launched, this was a record first quarter for AT&T's smartphone sales, and it's thanks in no small part to the iPhone.

It's not surprising see the iPhone 4S still selling so well, despite being at mid-point in its product cycle. The iPhone has traditionally sold stronger, longer than any other handset on the market.

When asked which carrier shoppers would be interested in siding with should an LTE iPhone be launched this fall, the line was pretty evenly split between AT&T and Verizon among our forum-goers. Of course, that's a ways off, and might give AT&T enough time to catch up to Verizon's LTE coverage.

Source: AT&T, pic

Apple has announced that they'll be telling us precisely how insanely rich they are after new iPad sales on April 24, 2012. The quarter will cover their sales from December 31, 2011 to late March, which includes the launch period of the new iPad. On the first weekend alone, Apple was able to sell three million new iPads, and one can only imagine how much that figure has ballooned since then, especially if the Q2 2012 results are taking into account the international releases that followed.

As if Apple needed any help attracting investors, they've also recently announced a share buyback program and that they'll start issuing dividends to stockholders. Some analysts think that Apple's stock will break the $1000 mark within a year; given its growth rate and the fact that it's sitting at around $630 presently, that doesn't sound too far off, does it?

You'll be able to catch the investor's call webcast over here.

Tim Cook isn't the only one cashing in Apple stock these days; Senior VP of marketing, Phil Schiller, CFO Peter Openheimer, VP of hardware engineering Robert Mansfield, and VP of iOS software Scott Forstall recently had the restrictions on some of their stocks removed, resulting in a sizable sell-off between March 24 and March 26. Even Cook sold off a few more. Here's the breakdown according to the SEC filings.

Tim Cook – Apple CEO

• 200,000 shares sold; stock prices ranging from $596.05-606.80.
• Total value: $119,715,170

Philip Schiller – Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing

• 64,151 shares sold; stock prices ranging from $602.30-603.05.
• Total value: $38,661,014

Peter Openheimer – Senior VP and CFO

• 150,000 shares sold; stock prices ranging from $596.05-599.33.
• Total value: $89,624,444

Robert Mansfield – Senior VP Hardware Engineering

• 56,016 shares sold at $596.05.
• Total value: $33,388,336

Scott Forstall – Senior VP iOS Software

• 55,849 shares sold at $596.05.
• Total value: $33,288,796

Total dollar amount combined: $314,677,763.28

Before anyone freaks out that Apple execs are losing faith in the company, this is actually pretty common practice, and not surprising considering these guys probably have lots more stock (restricted and otherwise) piled up. The timing also lines up nicely with Apple's plans to buy that stock right back. The AAPL stock price approached $615 a pop during the period the execs sold off, compared to around $350 at this time last year. This is the part where you start smacking yourself for not buying stock five years ago when it was down around $90.

Source: SEC Filings, iPhoneinCanada

Apple lays out $45 billion, 3 year strategy to attract new investors and neutralize dilution

As expected, and hinted at by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple announced the start of a regular quarterly dividend this morning. They also announced intentions to buy back stock, although the dividend is the bigger news, and drew more questions from analysts on the call.

Apple held a conference call at 6am in their home time zone. That’s 9am for us East Coast people, and more importantly, it’s about the latest you can start a call while still getting all the news out before the stock market opens at 9:30am. So for those of you wondering why Apple held the call so early, its’ all about getting news out into the public’s hands before the market opens.

So what did they say? Here’s a summary of the main points:

• Apple has declared a divided of $2.65 per share starting around July. This, alone, will consume almost $10 billion of cash per year, based on Apple’s current shares outstanding of just over 932 million.
• Apple will also buy back about $10 billion of stock over the next three years. The focus of the buyback is to offset share growth from stock the company issues to employees, and stock that employees buy as part of the employee stock purchase plan.
• Although Apple has almost $100 billion in cash, only about $34 billion is domestic (held in the US). The rest is in foreign markets, and Apple would have to pay heavy taxes on this cash if they were to repatriate it right now. They are trying to convince congress that these US tax policies on repatriated cash are hurting local investments. It seems like a no-brainer to me. Apple doesn’t need to bring the money back home, and won’t if it is heavily taxed.
• Unrelated to the use of cash announcement, Tim Cook did reveal that Apple had a “record weekend”, in vaguely answering a question about the launch of the new iPad.

Dividends opens the door to new investors

In the world of investing, different types of funds have different mandates. Some funds are mandated to only buy dividend-paying stocks. Obviously these funds would not have been allowed to buy Apple stock in the past.

Now that this has changed, it opens the door to new buyers. This is one of the reasons that dividends often result in short term spikes in a stock’s trading price.

On top of this, we can expect demand among these new investors will be hot. After all, Apple is trading at an attractive P/E (price to earnings ratio) of only 14x based on this year’s expected earnings. Given the super strong growth rate of the company, this puts Apple stock in both the “value” and the “growth” camps at the same time. Dividend investment funds love this.

Plenty of room to grow

The $2.65 per quarter dividend means that investors are getting about 1.8% per year. Some analysts suggested that Apple could go up to 2.5%. And I agree with them. But we have to remember that companies who initiate dividends always want to position themselves to look good in the future. So they start slowly. They pay what they know can be easily paid. Then, over time, they increase the dividend.

Apple could even hold its payout ratio constant, and just grow its dividend based upon organic company growth. But if growth slows, and the need for such a huge cash war chest lessens, Apple can continue to grow its dividend by increasing the payout ratio.

Asymco has compiled the profits, revenues, and unit shipments among all of the major manufacturers, and as you can see in this graph, Apple is still kicking everyone's behind when it comes to smartphone profit share. Though the revenue share gap with Samsung is a bit smaller than the one for profits, Apple is still decidedly in the lead. After all is said and done, Apple is claiming 75% of the profit share, 40% of the revenue share, and 9% of the unit share of the mobile market (though that last number might be closer to 8%).

After Apple's monstrously successful first quarter it's no surprise that Apple is profitable. Heck, it's no surprise they're the undisputed God-King of the mobile industry, and they probably have a giant pool of money where employees can get all Scrooge McDuck on lunch breaks. However, the fact that Apple is pulling in so much money out of the entire industry really illustrates just how successful the iPhone has become. Of course, if you ask any Android fan, financial success doesn't necessarily equate to product quality (and I'm inclined to agree with them), but you can't argue with the results. There's another great graph here that shows just how much the iPhone's market share has increased on multiple fronts since launch in 2007.

With this much of a lead, how much does Apple really have to worry about? Will it suffer death by a thousand cuts from a bajillionty Android devices? Or will Windows Phone eventually come into its own and give iPhone a run for its money? Looking at this graphs, it's hard to imagine either of these things happening. The best the competition can reasonably hope for now is to get comfortable in second place. Let's put it this way -- what would the competition have to do to win you over?

Source: Asymco

Apple has just posted their annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report. The report aims to help improve worker protections and factory conditions as well as show audit information for the year. The report outlines how their audit procedure is performed as well as shows results for audits in 2011.

Apple also posted a list of the 156 suppliers that make up over 95% of their supply chain. The main focus of the report is to highlight their continued efforts to improve work conditions and tighten down on underage labor.

Apple-designed training programs have educated more than one million supply chain employees about local laws, their rights as workers, occupational health and safety, and Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct.

Apple is also offering educational programs for workers to improve their business skills as well as learn more about entrepreneurship.

Source: Apple report, Apple list

Mercedes-Benz is providing iPads to 40 lucky dealers across the country so that they gain access to the company's point-of-sale dealer system on the showroom floors.

"Mercedes-Benz Financial today announced that it is putting the Apple iPad into the hands of its dealers, becoming the first automotive finance company to give dealers mobile access to its proprietary point-of-sale dealer system called MB Advantage. In doing so, Mercedes-Benz Financial is one of the first companies to adapt the consumer-oriented iPad as a mobile business tool."

And why not use iPad as it will provide the dealers with wireless mobility, information and flexibility - directly at their finger tips.

Video after the break! And yes we are aware it will not play on your iPhone - blame Mercedes-Benz for using Flash...

Even though the folks at Apple are toting the iPhone 3G as being business-friendly by offering some extra functionality and Exchange support via the iPhone 2.0 upgrade, the iPhone has always been a worthy platform for the business and finance-minded user (in my humble opinion).   Case in point,  the list of twenty-five (yes, 25!) different financial apps for the iPhone at currencytrading.net. I'll cover briefly just a few of these apps in today's Tip and you can explore the rest to your heart's content.

iCalc Mortgage Calculator is great for finding out what your mortgage payment will be when buying a new home, or you can use it to figure out what your payment WILL be once your interest-only payments expire (ouch!).

Another useful app is Currency Exchange. Given the free-fall of the dollar, it's not a bad idea to have a way to see how it stacks up against other world currencies.

iTIPZ Tip Calculator is exactly like it sounds - let this app compute your tip, split it as many ways as you have payers, and even let it round off the number for you.  Sweet!

Compound Interest Calculator helps you compute how much moolah ($$$) you can save over a period of time.  Remember when you were young (cough) and someone much older and wiser told you that if you saved $5 a week for 30 years you would have a gazillion dollars due to the magic of compound interest?  Yeah, well, I didn't save the $5/week either, but at least if you start now, you can use this app to set your goals.

These are just four of the twenty-five apps at currencytrading.net.  Just head on over there at the speed of a click to see the rest.  If you have finances on the brain, there's bound to be an app there that will be useful.

That's it for this week's Tip.  If you have a tip of your own that you would like to share with the rest of us, please leave a Comment or you can email me at: brian.hart@tipb.com.

Disclaimer:  Tip o' the Week makes no guarantee, express or implied, that any tip found herein will be new or particularly useful to the reader (ok, ok.  I may have exaggerated the "gazillion" you can save via compound interest if you sock away $5/week.  It's more like a bazillion).