Apple’s brand loyalty and reasonable valuation is what convinced billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett to invest in the company, Buffett told CNBC Monday.
Buffett explained why Berkshire Hathaway doubled its Apple holdings in January, stating that he used his understanding of the furniture market to appreciate the strength of the iPhone.
Apple has become one of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire’s largest holdings, valued at about $19.2 billion USD as of March 31.
According to Buffett, many people can be easily persuaded to pay more for furniture that they really wanted as opposed to cheaper alternatives. It’s the same with the smartphone market, says the famous investor.
“We happened to be well situated in terms of having these massive home furnishing stores. I can learn very easily how consumers react to different things there,” Buffett told CNBC, referring to Berkshire’s ownership of Nebraska Furniture Mart.
“You can’t move people by price in the smartphone market remotely like you can move them in appliances or all kinds of things,” he continued.
The “Oracle of Omaha” continues to be bullish on Apple’s flagship iPhone product. “It’s a very, very, very valuable product to people that build their lives around it. And that’s true of 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds,” Buffett said of the iPhone. “People want the product. They don’t want the cheapest product.”
