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Discussion Post
Apple started to pay the dividend after 17 years in the year 2012and since then the dividends of the company has increased. The company has a higher dividend pay-out ratio as the revenues and the income of the company has grown over the years. The company’s dividend policy revolves around the generated revenues of the company and has been constant to improve on it and increase it. The company’s dividend yield is 1.6% and the payout ratio of the company is 26% in the last 12 months.
Apple have a strong culture and consistent returns which ensures that the dividend policy of the company are strong and the growth of the dividend attracts the investors and give them the best returns. With the expansion of the company, the company has benchmarked its ratio against its earnings and the dividend per share of the company is also increasing. I think, Apple has been successful in creating a sound balance between the growth of the company and the increased dividends which has made the investors happy.
The dividend policy is irrelevant to the stakeholders when considering the perfect capital market. The firm itself is valuable whether it pays all its earnings as dividends or retains all its cash flows. The wealth of the stakeholders is not affected with the dividend policy.
The dividend paid over last five years includes:
    Year
    2018
    2017
    2016
    2015
    2014
    Cash dividends
    2.72
    2.40
    2.18
    1.98
    1.82

So, the growth rate of the dividends over past 5 years is: 49.45%, so the dividends per share over last 5 years has grown by 49.45%, which is quite high, and the five year growth rate is...