Who Owns Apple (AAPL)? Institutional Ownership Map

Who owns the most Apple?

The largest disclosed Apple holders are the index giants. This is the single most important fact about AAPL ownership and the one most "who owns Apple" answers get wrong by leading with Warren Buffett: the biggest holders are the funds that have to own Apple because it is a top weight in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100. Across all 763 reporting managers, the combined disclosed Apple position runs to roughly $1.37T.

Values are each filer's reported long position as of its most recent 13F; live figures and the full holder list are on the Apple ownership page. The "as of" column matters: 13F filings arrive asynchronously, so one quarter's largest filer may be a quarter ahead of another's.

The passive core vs the active money

Read AAPL's holder list as two layers.

The passive core is the top of the table: Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Geode, and the index sleeves inside Fidelity. These managers hold Apple in proportion to its index weight. Their quarter-over-quarter moves track fund flows and index rebalancing far more than any view on the stock. When Vanguard "adds" 1.9%, that is mostly new money flowing into total-market and S&P 500 funds, not a Vanguard analyst turning bullish. Even Berkshire Hathaway, the one famous active name in the very top tier at roughly $58B, held its Apple stake flat last quarter, so its presence at the top is a legacy position, not a fresh signal.

The active money is everyone making a position-sizing decision. That is where the signal lives, and it is mostly further down the list. Last quarter the notable active moves on the long side included Daiwa Securities Group, which added roughly 24% to its Apple stake, Bank of Nova Scotia, up about 23%, and Danske Bank, up about 14%, alongside Winslow Capital Management (about +12%) and Zurcher Kantonalbank (about +5%). On the other side, Los Angeles Capital Management cut its disclosed long position by about 14%, Eurizon Capital trimmed close to 12%, and Credit Agricole cut about 11%. None of those is a verdict on the stock by itself, but a screen of who is adding versus trimming, weighted by manager quality, is the actual use of this data. The smart-money leaderboard is the practical starting view.

One nuance specific to a mega-cap like Apple: hedge funds frequently express AAPL views through options, and 13F reports put and call positions as flagged rows valued against the underlying. A naive aggregator that sums every AAPL row into a "long book" turns a protective put into a bullish bet. Our data separates option legs from the long-equity book, so a manager's reported AAPL long is the share position, not a blended notional. (More on that trap: 13F options, puts and calls explained.)

A data-quality footnote: the Vanguard reorg

If you pull AAPL ownership from raw EDGAR right now, you will see three Vanguard entities reporting Apple: Vanguard Group plus two newer entities (Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC and Vanguard Fiduciary Trust Co) that began filing separately after an internal reorganization. Sum all three and you double-count tens of billions of dollars of the same shares. This is the kind of identifier and entity-resolution problem that makes institutional ownership data hard to keep clean, and it is exactly what a sourced, deduplicated layer is for. We model the reorg so the combined view does not inflate Vanguard's true position. (Background: 13F amendments and restatements.)

What 13F does and does not tell you about AAPL

Four limits to keep in mind before treating any "who owns Apple" number as complete:

• It lags up to 45 days. A 13F reports positions as of quarter-end and is due 45 days later, so the picture can be a full quarter stale by the time you read it. AAPL can move 15% in that window.
• It is long-only. 13F covers long positions in 13(f) securities. Short positions, cash, and most derivatives net exposure do not appear. A fund that looks "long AAPL" on a 13F may be hedged.
• It misses smaller and foreign holders. Only managers with $100M+ in 13(f) securities must file a Form 13F, so retail, smaller funds, and many non-US holders are invisible here.
• Insiders file separately. Apple's own officers and directors report their trades on Form 4 within two business days, a different and faster feed than 13F. See insider activity for AAPL and the filing-type comparison.

The honest summary: 13F tells you which large institutions disclosed an Apple long position at the last quarter-end and how it changed, not who owns Apple in real time.

How to track Apple ownership as it updates

The durable workflow is to resolve the entity once, pull the holder list, and diff across quarters rather than reading a single filing. With the REST API:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" \
  "https://arkolith.com/api/v1/stocks/AAPL"

For an AI agent, the same data is exposed through MCP tools so the assistant can answer "which funds added Apple last quarter" directly, with each figure carrying its source filing and quarter. Start with the MCP quickstart, the 13F data layer, or the live Apple ownership page. Every figure on those surfaces is sourced to its SEC EDGAR accession, which is the point: an ownership claim without a filing date and quarter-end is incomplete.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Apple's largest shareholder?

Among institutional 13F filers, Vanguard Group reports the largest Apple position, around $388 billion at its latest filing, followed by BlackRock at around $291 billion. Both are index-fund managers holding Apple in line with its weight in major indexes, not active stock-pickers.

How many institutions own Apple?

763 institutional managers disclose an Apple long position in their most recent 13F filings in our dataset, for a combined reported value of roughly $1.37 trillion. That count covers managers with at least $100M in 13(f) securities; it excludes retail holders, smaller funds, and many foreign holders that do not file 13F.

Does Warren Buffett still own Apple?

Yes. Berkshire Hathaway still discloses a large Apple position, around $58 billion in its latest 13F, and held it flat last quarter rather than adding or trimming. It remains one of Berkshire's biggest equity holdings, though it is far smaller than the index managers at the top of the cap table.

Which funds added or trimmed Apple recently?

On the buying side, Daiwa Securities Group (about +24%), Bank of Nova Scotia (about +23%), and Danske Bank (about +14%) grew their positions most. On the selling side, Los Angeles Capital Management (about -14%), Eurizon Capital (about -12%), and Credit Agricole (about -11%) cut the most. Screen the full list, weighted by manager quality, on the investors leaderboard.

Is 13F ownership data live?

No. A 13F is a quarterly snapshot filed up to 45 days after quarter-end, so Apple's disclosed ownership can be months old by the time it publishes. Use it for institutional positioning and quarter-over-quarter changes, never as a live book.

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Arkolith turns SEC ownership filings into clean, sourced, queryable data. See the live Apple ownership page, connect an agent through the MCP quickstart, or get a key. Not investment advice.