In announcing its first quarterly revenue decline in 13 years, Apple on Tuesday said it will infuse another $50 billion into an ongoing capital return program, a move that comes with a $35 billion boost to the company's share repurchase initiative.
Apple's board of directors authorized the buyback on "strong" results, setting a repurchase authorization at $175 billion, up from $140 billion announced last year. Combined with past returns, the company plans to dish out a total of $250 billion to shareholders by the end of March 2018.
"We generated strong operating cash flow of $11.6 billion and returned $10 billion to shareholders through our capital return program during the March quarter," said Apple CFO Luca Maestri. "Thanks to the strength of our business results, we are happy to be announcing today a further increase of the program to $250 billion."
In addition to the capital returns, Apple said it also plans to continue to net-share-settle vesting restricted stock units.
Related to stock repurchasing activities, Apple announced a 10 percent increase to its quarterly payout to investors, declaring a dividend of $0.57 per share, payable on May 12, 2016, to stockholders of record as of May 9, 2016.
The company said its capital return program has returned more than $163 billion to investors since its activation in August 2012, $117 billion of which came in the form of share repurchases.