Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is scheduled to pay its second dividend of 2026 next week on May 14, with the ex-dividend date of May 11.
By current estimates, the amount paid will be modestly higher compared to the last one issued on February 12, amounting to $0.27 per share as opposed to $0.26.
As such, this quarter’s dividend will mark the first payment increase since May last year, when the company increased its dividend from $0.25 to $0.26.
This year’s Apple dividend gains
At $0.27 per share, investors holding 100 AAPL shares in their portfolios will receive $27 in next week’s dividends.
If we assume a bigger, $10,000 investment made on January 1, 2026, it would now be worth about $10,137.27, according to the latest statistics Finbold retrieved from DivvyDiary.
Of that total return, $129.25 would have come from share price appreciation, while dividends would have added $8.02. As a result, the total gain would sit at $137.27.
Overall, the figure equates to a 1.37% total return, with an annualized return (CAGR) of 4.09% when dividends are reinvested.
Without dividends, on the other hand, the price-only CAGR stands slightly lower at 3.85%.
Apple dividends remain a secondary driver
As seen above, the $8.02 in overall dividends would represent only a small fraction of this year’s total return, which highlights Apple’s relatively low-yield dividend profile.
In other words, the company is not positioned as a passive income stock, much like, for example, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), which paid $0.01 per share last quarter.
Most of the gains in this scenario, over 90%, to be precise, would have come from stock price movement.
This, of course, aligns with Apple’s long-standing strategy of prioritizing capital appreciation and share buybacks while maintaining a steady but relatively small dividend.
Featured image via Shutterstock
