The prolific investor has finally retired his flip phone.
Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the wealthiest men on the planet, has never owned an iPhone. His mobile communicator of choice was Samsung’s SCH-U320, a flip phone released in 2010 that typically sells on eBay for around $20. Buffett has admitted in the past that he only needs a phone for making calls. This is despite the fact that Buffett owns a respectable stake in Apple, approximately 5.5%. In fact, back in 2018, Apple CEO Tim Cook joked that should Buffett purchase an iPhone, he would personally fly out to Omaha to help him set it up and use it. As of today, though, Cook may need to book that flight.
Buffett announced today that he has purchased his very first smartphone, an iPhone 11. Despite the new utilities the device makes available to him, however, Buffett admitted that it’s mostly used for its primary purpose: making calls.
“You’re looking at an 89-year old guy who’s barely beginning to get with it,” he said, adding that he doesn’t use “all its facilities like most people.”
Buffett has used Apple products in the past, specifically an iPad for the sake of stock checking and research, but he has used the same flip phone for at least a decade. Buffett has a lot of respect for Apple as a company, saying that it is “probably the best business I know in the world.” As of the beginning of the year, his company owns over 245 million shares of Apple, a value of approximately $72 billion.
