Tim Cook’s legacy by the numbers

Apple chief executive Tim Cook hands over the reins to his successor John Ternus on Tuesday, capping 15 years at the top of one of the world’s biggest companies.

Success for Cook, who will become executive chair, has been built on wringing more money out of users on Apple’s billions of devices, fine-tuning its supply chain to maintain high margins and exercising tight control of its ecosystem in the name of privacy.

Yet Cook’s tendency to play it safe, and rely on manufacturing in China, has looked more precarious in recent years. Apple has come under attack from politicians and global regulators, while its reputation as an innovator has faltered in the AI era. His successor will have to face the consequences. Here is Cook’s legacy in numbers.

$4tn of market value

When Cook took over, shortly before the death of Steve Jobs, he “stepped into shoes that were impossible to fill. And he more than filled them,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management.

Apple’s shares have since risen more than 2,000 per cent. In that time the company has returned well over $1tn to shareholders in buybacks and dividends. Cook started a massive, sustained programme in 2012, after years of investors clamouring for returns.

Meanwhile, Apple’s weight on the S&P 500 has roughly doubled from just over 3 per cent of the index’s value to nearly 7 per cent, coinciding with a general tilt in US markets towards a small group of Big Tech stocks. The company has grown from roughly 60,000 to about 166,000 direct employees, with 535 retail stores across 27 countries and regions.

3.1bn iPhones

Apple has shipped 3.1bn iPhones since Cook took over, according to figures from the International Data Corporation. Lined up end to end, those smartphones would comfortably reach from the Earth’s surface to the Moon.

The iPhone still accounts for about half of Apple’s total revenue. The company says there are now more than 2.5bn active Apple devices globally, compared to a few hundred million in 2011.

$638bn share price wobble

After US President Donald Trump unveiled global tariffs last April, Apple’s market value dropped $638bn in just three days, one of the biggest ever market cap losses for a US company. The stock recovered but it was a reminder of how Cook, as the architect of Apple’s supply chain, has tied it ever closer to China. “Cook has not been the CEO of a company. He’s been the CEO of a country,” said Munster.

Before it stopped publishing its supplier lists in 2024, the disclosures showed 90 per cent of suppliers were at least partially building for Apple in China or Taiwan.

A well-choreographed $600bn US investment pledge last year won Apple goodwill with Trump. But its reliance on China is deeply entrenched, a reality that leaves Apple exposed to flare-ups between Washington and Beijing. Cook has also bowed to China’s political requests, such as removing international news apps from its App Store.

5 new hardware categories

Apple’s core product line-up, the iPhone, Mac and iPad, has not changed since 2011. The Apple Watch and AirPods were the most popular new hardware categories launched under Cook. The HomePod and Vision Pro headset have proven niche by comparison. Apple’s project to build its own car was shelved in 2024.

Arguably, Cook’s most significant legacy in hardware is invisible. By designing its own silicon, dumping third-party chips such as Intel’s, Cook has helped grow Apple’s already impressive margins, from about 40 per cent in 2011 to close to 50 per cent today.

$19bn in EU penalties

One of the thornier problems Cook leaves his successor is Apple’s relationship with regulators. As Apple has grown, global enforcers, including the US Department of Justice, have moved against it primarily over monopoly concerns.

Europe is where Cook has faced the sharpest consequences. In 2016, the EU ordered Apple to pay $14.4bn in back taxes over its Irish tax arrangements. Competition regulators in the bloc have hit the company with about $4bn in antitrust fines since 2011. Ternus will inherit a stand-off over the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which has delayed the launch of Siri AI in the bloc. The new AI voice assistant is seen as critical for the next generation of Apple devices.

Big moments in Apple’s global monopoly backlash

Spotify files EU antitrust complaint against Apple, triggers first EU antitrust probe

US House judiciary committee concludes Apple wields monopoly power in iPhone software

EU passes the Digital Markets Act, aimed at taming the market power of Big Tech

US Department of Justice files smartphone monopoly lawsuit against Apple

EU fines Apple €500mn for failing to comply with the DMA

1.5bn ‘services’ customers

Cook has overseen a profound shift in Apple’s services business, which barely registered in 2011. The company has turned its ubiquitous hardware into a powerful vehicle for services such as Apple Pay, iCloud, the App Store and Apple Music. It now reports 1.5bn paying subscribers.

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That dominance, however, is threatened by a rare series of mis-steps around AI, as Apple fumbled the launch of Apple Intelligence in 2024.

Apple has sat out the vastly expensive race to build AI models and data centres — a move that could prove pivotal. It has turned instead to OpenAI and more recently Google’s technology.

Investors want to know how Apple will turn AI — such as its new voice assistant — into another services opportunity.

$880mn pay

Over 15 years at the top of Apple, Cook has personally been paid $880mn, including base salary, stock awards and cash incentives. He owns just 0.02 per cent of Apple, according to FactSet data. Forbes estimates his total net worth at about $3bn.

Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West