If You Invested In Apple Stock Instead Of Buying iPhones Each Year, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

The highly anticipated iPhone 17 was released by Apple Inc AAPL on Friday, a smartphone that could usher the tech giant deeper into the artificial intelligence sector.

This marks the latest iPhone to be released in the smartphone series from the company that dates back to 2007.

Here’s a look at the history of the iPhone and how an investment in Apple stock could have done as opposed to buying a new iPhone each year.

What Happened: Apple unveiled the iPhone on Jan. 9, 2007, at its Macworld event. Then CEO Steve Jobs highlighted the smartphone’s function of being three combined products: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and internet communications.

“iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone,” Jobs said at the time. “We are all born with the ultimate pointing device — our fingers — and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.”

It was announced the iPhone would be released in June 2007 in the U.S., in late 2007 in Europe, and in 2008 in Asia. The iPhone was given price tags of $499 and $599 in the U.S.

“Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh,” the company said.

Benzinga previously shared that the return of a $1,000 investment in Apple at the time the iPhone was announced could have bought 295.86 shares of the tech giant. Today, that $1,000 investment would be worth $72,538.95.

While Benzinga is known for its share of “if you invested $1,000” hypothetical stories over the years, this article attempts to paint a clearer picture of how investing in Apple stock would have compared to buying each new iPhone model.

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Investing in Apple Stock instead of iPhones: Following the release of the first iPhone in 2007, Apple has released a new model every year, with some years featuring multiple releases and updates.

For the purpose of this exercise, one new iPhone model was considered for each year. Stock prices are the opening price for each iPhone release date and are split, adjusted for a 7-for-1 split in 2014 and a 4-for-1 split in 2020. Dividends are not factored into the starting price or return.

The release dates and starting prices for the iPhone models come from Bankmycell and Android Authority. Starting prices vary based on model.

Here’s a look at returns for the iPhones with their release date, starting price, Apple stock price at the time, number of shares that could have been purchased and current value based on Apple shares at $245.18.

• iPhone, June 29, 2007, $499, Apple $4.37 per share, 114.19 shares, $27,997.10
• iPhone 3G, July 11, 2008, $599, Apple $6.27 per share, 95.53 shares, $23,422.05
• iPhone 3GS, June 19, 2009, $599, Apple $4.93 per share, 121.50 shares, $29,789.37
• iPhone 4, June 24, 2010, $599, Apple $9.68 per share, 61.88 shares, $15,171.74
• iPhone 4S, Oct. 14, 2011, $649, Apple $14.89 per share, 43.59 shares, $10,687.40
• iPhone 5, Sept. 21, 2012, $649, Apple $25.09 per share, 25.87 shares, $6,342.81
• iPhone 5S, Sept. 20, 2013, $649, Apple $17.07 per share, 38.02 shares, $9,321.74
• iPhone 6, Sept. 19, 2014, $649, Apple $25.57 per share, 25.38 shares, $6,222.67
• iPhone 6S, Sept. 25, 2015, $649, Apple $28.34 per share, 22.90 shares, $5,614.62
• iPhone 7, Sept. 16, 2016, $649, Apple $28.78 per share, 22.55 shares, $5,528.81
• iPhone 8/X, Sept. 22, 2017, $999, Apple $37.88 per share, 26.37 shares, $6,465.40
• iPhone XS, Sept. 21, 2018, $1,099, Apple $55.19 per share, 19.91 shares, $4,881.53
• iPhone 11, Sept. 20, 2019, $1,099, Apple $55.35 per share, 19.86 shares, $4,869.27
• iPhone 12, Oct. 23, 2020, $999, Apple $116.39 per share, 8.58 shares, $2,103.64
• iPhone 13, Sept. 24, 2021, $1,099, Apple $145.66 per share, 7.54 shares, $1,848.66
• iPhone 14, Sept. 16, 2022, $1,099, Apple $151.21 per share, 7.27 shares, $1,782.46
• iPhone 15, Sept. 22, 2023, $799, Apple $174.67 per share, 4.57 shares, $1,120.47
• iPhone 16, Sept. 20, 2024, $799, Apple $229.97 per share, 3.48 shares, $853.23

As you can see from the chart above, investing in Apple stock instead of buying an iPhone each year would have generated a better return for investors, including the release of iPhone 16 last year.

Adding it all up, a person would spend $14,182 to buy a new iPhone model each year since 2007. If that same amount were put into Apple stock each year on the day of the new phone release, an investor would have $160,022.97 today.

This represents a profit of $149,840.97 and a return of 1,056.6% over the past 18 years.

While you wouldn’t be a millionaire undertaking the strategy of investing in Apple stock instead of the iPhone using this method, it represents an impressive return.

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This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.

Photo: Shutterstock