1. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Berkshire’s Stake Value: $61.96 Billion
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) remains the biggest holding of Berkshire despite the fund decreasing its stake in the iPhone maker over the past few quarters.
Wall Street was extremely skeptical of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s AI strategy until concerns over increasing data center spending and ROI started popping holes in the AI hype, making the Cupertino giant’s approach look increasingly prudent. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) spent just about $12.7 billion in CapEx last year, while major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon are expected to spend about $600 billion combined on AI infrastructure in 2026.
What about the concerns about declining iPhone sales? Earlier this year, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) issued a higher-than-expected revenue growth guidance for the March quarter driven by a rebound in iPhone demand. But let’s face it: Analysts are now coming to terms with the reality that iPhone sales are unlikely to keep delivering strong growth as users may not upgrade as frequently.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) anticipated this shift and began diversifying into services and other higher-margin business segments. As of the fiscal Q1, Apple’s Services revenue reached an all-time record of $30 billion, accounting for about 21% of total revenue. Services gross margins are about 76%, nearly double the 40.7% margin seen on physical products. With an installed base of 2.5 billion devices, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is positioned well to keep making money despite a potential plateau in iPhone sales.
YCG Investments stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its fourth quarter 2025 investor letter:
“This playbook of buying more of what is cyclically not working has paid off many times in the past, with the most recent example being our trimming during the April tariff sell off of Verisk (a defensive name that was up year-to-date at the time) to buy Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Inc. (a great business in which we had long-term confidence that was down sharply on tariff fears). Fast forwarding to this past quarter, Apple was now up for the year while Verisk was down substantially. This reversal occurred despite, in our opinion, no significant change to their long-term prospects. Therefore, we took advantage of the volatility again, trimming Apple and buying more Verisk.”
While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AAPL and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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