Apple is a better business than Geico, See's Candies, and the rest of Berkshire Hathaway's companies, Warren Buffett says

Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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• Apple outshines all of Berkshire Hathaway's businesses, Warren Buffett says.
• The Berkshire CEO emphasized the immense value Apple's customers place on their devices.
• Buffett touted the fact that Berkshire's Apple stake grows as the tech titan buys back stock.

Apple outclasses every single one of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries, Warren Buffett says.

"It just happens to be a better business than any we own," the billionaire investor and Berkshire CEO said during his company's annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday.

Speaking at the meeting, Buffett underlined the intense loyalty that Apple fans feel towards the company's devices, at one point suggesting that its customers would prefer to give up a second car worth $35,000 than part with their $1,500 iPhones.

The investor also pointed out that Berkshire can't own more than 100% of its subsidiaries, whereas its ownership of Apple continues to rise as the tech giant repurchases its shares.

"The good thing about Apple is that we can go up," he said.

Buffett's conglomerate owns about 5.8% of Apple, a stake worth more than $150 billion as of Friday's close. The technology titan is easily the most valuable holding in Buffett's stock portfolio, and the position now represents a big chunk of Berkshire's $700 billion market capitalization.

Berkshire plowed around $36 billion into Apple between 2016 and 2018. It has roughly quadrupled its investment on paper over the past five years.

Buffett has previously described Apple as "probably the best business" he knows, and underscored how indispensable its devices are to users. He's also hailed Tim Cook as "one of the classiest CEOs," and said the Apple leader has run the company extraordinarily well.

"It's an incredibly valuable utility," Buffett said about the iPhone in a recent interview with CNBC. "We'll never own a business that makes so many people happier and is so useful for them."

Berkshire owns dozens of businesses including Geico, See's Candies, Dairy Queen, Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, NetJets, and the BNSF Railway.

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