Apple is currently in the Department of Justice's crosshairs after the bombshell news last week that the company is on the receiving end of a new antitrust lawsuit over the way it runs the iPhone's App Store. It's argued that Apple stifles innovation by controlling which apps and services can be made to work with the iPhone in an attempt to prevent competition for its own offerings and the lawsuit claims that the amount of money it spends on research and development is an example of that.
The lawsuit notes that while Apple spent a whopping $77 billion on a share buyback scheme in 2023, it only spent a relatively small amount of money on its R&D projects — just $30 billion. It's argued that Apple is able to spend so much on share buybacks, rather than choose to spend it on researching new technologies and features because it isn't currently under enough pressure to innovate. The company's lack of competition is the reason for that, it's claimed.
