If you bought a share of Apple stock at the IPO, here’s how many shares you’d own now

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) returned to the top spot as the world’s largest company by market capitalization. It’s been through some amazing ups and downs, but if you bought stock at the 1980 initial public offering (IPO) and held on, you’d have a lot more stock and a lot more money. Let’s see how much.

Holds for the long term

Apple went public in December 1980 at $22 per share. Like almost every stock over a nearly 45-year period, Apple stock has risen and fallen several times. For example, it lost 21% of its value between 1989 and 1996 — a long time for an investor to hold onto a losing stock. But if you did, you’d be crazy today.

Since then, Apple has developed an incredible technology platform with a strong moat in its differentiated systems and applications. It has a strong, loyal fan base that only buys Apple products and is constantly switching to new drops and releases. Just this week, Apple released its latest software update, iOS18, with tons of new upgrades and features. It is also investing in artificial intelligence (AI) to stay competitive in the technology race.

That’s why Apple stock has skyrocketed over time and gone through five stock splits: three 2-for-1 stock splits in 1987, 2000 and 2005; a 7-for-1 split in 2014; and a 4-for-1 split in 2020. Each IPO share would have been worth $0.10 split adjusted and you would own 224 shares today. At today’s prices, that’s worth $48,455.

In short, the stock has appreciated more than 2,200 times since the IPO. For further perspective, if you had instead invested $1,000 in stocks at the IPO, your investment would have been worth $2.2 million today, excluding dividends paid to you over the years.

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Jennifer Saibil holds positions at Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

If You Bought a Share of Apple Stock at the IPO, Here’s How Much Share You’d Own Now was originally published by The Motley Fool