If You Invested $1,000 In Apple Ten Years Ago, Here's What Your Profit Would Be Today

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is literally the 800-pound gorilla in the room of stock trading. Thanks to its market capitalization of around $4.03 trillion, Apple sits among the most valuable companies on earth. Computer and technology founder Steve Jobs' Apple corporation did not accomplish this extraordinary feat through sheer luck.

The tech titan has frequently held the post of most profitable business in the world in the past decade. Its incredible growth in earnings has yielded phenomenal results for both the company and the investors in its stock. Apple enjoys this performance thanks in no small part to its dominant position in a number of segments in the consumer electronics markets.

Anyone who believed in Apple over the last 10 years and stayed the course through its sometimes wild yearly price swings has reaped tremendous rewards. $1,000 invested in the technology juggernaut 10 years ago would yield profits of over 582%, per Benzinga, showing that the company has dramatically outperformed the S&P 500 over the same time frame. So, for those considering converting their IRA account to a Roth IRA account, Apple could make a solid holding.

At the heart of the incredible Apple profit-making giant lies the firm's line of iPhones. These market-leading devices and their accessories usually make up the majority of worldwide smartphone sales revenue, even though a great number of competitors take on Apple. It is this phenomenal brand strength and fanatically loyal customer base that gives the company its enviable ability to maintain average selling price points that are much higher than its competitors. Apple claims the vast majority of global operating profits from smartphones, per The Motley Fool. Even a certain out-of-date iPhone is worth a fortune today.

Besides its commanding lead in the mobile sector, Apple enjoys strong results from its other consumer devices, services, software, and wearables. The firm produces a large range of popular electronics products including many in categories it actually invented. Among these devices are iPad tablets, Mac computers, AirPods, Apple Watches, and Apple TV products.

In the service arena, Apple delivers a vast range from which to choose. Consumers can take advantage of the company's Apple Music, Apple TV+, iCloud, iTunes, Apple Care, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, and Apple Pay to name a few. The firm's various products also power semiconductors and internally developed software. Apple corporation sells its vast product lineup through both third-party merchandisers and Apple-owned company stores. With over 40% of its revenues derived from the Americas, it earns the other 60% from its powerful presence in overseas markets.

Apple's long list of investors features many famous names, with the NASDAQ reporting institutional investors hold over 64% of the company's stock. Some of its big-name investors are Vanguard Group, Blackrock, State Street Corp, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Norges Bank, and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett spent years as a very public believer in Apple, to the point that The Motley Fool reports roughly 24% of his entire portfolio — around 300 million shares — was made up of Apple stock as of December 2024. Though he's since sold a sizable portion of those shares, the fact that Apple was once his largest single investment holding says quite a lot about the stock's value.

If you had invested $1,000 in Apple 10 years ago, you would have benefited from both enormous price appreciation and consistent dividend payouts in the stock. $1,000 of Apple stock bought in mid-2015 would have grown to $6,212 over the following decade. The dividends on these shares amounted to around $615, per Benzinga, generating a total profit equating to a 582.7% gain.

Of course, the incredible success of Apple and its stock over the past decade would not have necessarily meant a smooth ride all along the way. As of December 2025, the company's last 52-week price range has been as high as $288.62 and as low as $169.21, per Nasdaq. So, even the legendary stock of Apple can suffer the consequences of market corrections.