Charted: Stock Buybacks by the Magnificent Seven

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2 hours ago

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June 18, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

Charted: Stock Buybacks of the Magnificent Seven

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

By 2025, Goldman Sachs predicts that total U.S. stock buybacks will exceed $1 trillion. The bank sees this growth being driven by strong tech earnings growth and lower rates.

But what are buyback amounts like for the largest tech companies today?

This graphic looks at the total value of shares each Magnificent Seven company has repurchased in the last four quarters using data from their latest financial statements.

What is a Stock Buyback?

A stock buyback is when a company buys their own shares to reduce the number of available shares on the market. Companies may choose to buy back stock to return value to shareholders. Having fewer shares available improves earnings per share, and may drive up the stock price.

Buying back stocks can also come with risks, such as using up cash that would otherwise be put toward growing the business.

Stock Buybacks of Tech Titans

We gathered data from company financial statements to see how stock buyback amounts differed among the Magnificent Seven. Each total represents what companies reported from June 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024.

As we can see, the tech companies in the Magnificent Seven have been the ones buying back their stock over the past year.

CompanyTotal Stock BuybacksBuybacks as a % of Market Cap Apple$83B2.8% Alphabet (Google)$63B2.9% Meta$25B2.0% Microsoft$20B0.6% Nvidia$17B0.6% Amazon$0B0.0% Tesla$0B0.0%

Values rounded to the nearest billion. Company market caps are as of June 6, 2024.

Apple had by far the most share repurchases, raising its diluted earnings per share from $1.26 to $1.53. Going forward, Apple authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases, a U.S. record. The board says the repurchases are in light of their “confidence in Apple’s future and the value we see in our stock.”

On the flip side, both Amazon and Tesla did not issue stock buybacks in the last four quarters. Amazon’s CFO

Charted: How Many Data Centers do Major Big Tech Companies Have?

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1 hour ago

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June 4, 2024 Graphics/Design:

See this visualization first on the Voronoi app.

How Many Data Centers do Major Big Tech Companies Have?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

The Big Tech companies are often compared against each other in many ways: how much money they make, market capitalization, and the newest flavor, generative AI capabilities.

But in their great strides to capture the digital realm, how many huge data facilities do they need for all their services, analytics, and storage?

Sourcing information from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and some third-party estimates for Apple and Amazon, we find out.

Ranked: Big Tech’s Data Facilities

Cloud computing giants—Microsoft and Amazon—have data centers in the triple-digits to accommodate their customers’ burgeoning business demands.

However, there’s no one standard of how big a data center needs to be, so quantity doesn’t automatically translate into greater capacity.

Big Tech CompanyData Centers Microsoft**300 AWS*215 Google25 Meta24 Apple*10
Note: *Third-party estimates vary depending on the source. AWS is usually listed between 160–220 and Apple from 8–10. **Microsoft lists their count as “300+.”

According to Statista, AWS still maintains the biggest market share in the cloud computing segment (31%) even as Microsoft Azure edges ever closer (25%).

In fact, Amazon is aiming to spend $150 billion on more facilities over the next 15 years. Estimates say 26 data centers are currently under construction. All of this, of course, to chase the AI boom.

Despite dominating our digital lives however, Big Tech aren’t the only players when it comes to data center metrics. For example, Digital Realty, a colocation data center provider, would rank alongside Microsoft with 300+ data facilities.

Learn More about Big Tech and AI from Visual Capitalist

If you enjoyed this post, and you’re wondering which Big Tech players have made their forays into AI, check out Ranked: The Most Popular AI Tools. We visualize the most popular AI tools of 2023 along with recent tech adoption cycles and the software products that defined them.