Warren Buffett Held $72 Billion In Apple Stock — But Still Used A $20 Samsung Flip Phone: 'I Don't Throw Anything Away Until I've Had It 25 Years'

When most investors put billions into a company, they tend to buy in—literally. New phone, new laptop, new earbuds. Warren Buffett? Not so much. 

For years, the Oracle of Omaha held onto a $20 flip phone, even as his Apple investment soared into the tens of billions. The man who could buy a small tech company before breakfast was still using a device most people ditched before Instagram even existed.

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Let's rewind.

Back in 2016, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway started scooping up Apple shares. By 2018, he had a serious stake. At that point, he was still proudly carrying a Samsung SCH-U320 flip phone—a relic even then. While Apple's CEO Tim Cook was busy running one of the most valuable companies on Earth, he was also trying to convince his biggest shareholder to at least use the product.

"Tim Cook sent me a Christmas card again this year saying he's going to sell me an iPhone this year," Buffett said in a 2018 CNBC interview, holding up his vintage phone like it was a trophy. He even joked that Cook kept reminding him every Christmas.

Still, Buffett didn't budge.

He didn't switch to an iPhone until 2020, a year when Apple's stock price hit a record high, driving the company's valuation near $1.5 trillion. According to Markets Insider, Berkshire's Apple stake hit roughly $72 billion at the end of 2019—and by mid-2020, that number had jumped by another $11 billion, hitting $83 billion. That single stock made up over 40% of Berkshire's equity portfolio.

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That's when Buffett finally let go of his beloved burner.

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"My flip phone is permanently gone," he told CNBC's Becky Quick on Squawk Box in February 2020. "I've been given several of them, including [from] Tim Cook." He officially switched to an iPhone 11, though he admitted he mostly used it "as a phone" and wasn't diving deep into apps or emoji keyboards. "You're looking at an 89-year-old guy who's barely beginning to get with it," he said.

It's worth noting: Buffett was already managing one of the largest Apple stakes in the world before ever making a single FaceTime call.

His aversion to upgrades isn't new. Back in a 2013 CNN interview, Buffett pulled out a Nokia flip phone and joked, "This is the one Alexander Graham Bell gave me." He added, "I don't throw anything away until I've had it 20 or 25 years." That wasn't some figure of speech—he meant it. The Nokia was still in his pocket at a time when iPhones had fingerprint scanners.

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The underlying philosophy? Buffett never needed to use a product to see its value. He bought Apple not because he wanted to join the iPhone hype, but because he believed in the business model. And he believed in it enough to let it dominate his portfolio.

Fast forward to 2024, and Buffett began trimming that Apple stake. He sold about 115 million shares in Q1—roughly 13% of Berkshire's total. Then in Q2, Berkshire shed another $80 billion worth of Apple stock. Still, Berkshire retained more than 905 million shares valued at approximately $174 billion, according to company filings. That's 6% of all outstanding Apple shares and nearly one-fifth of Berkshire's entire portfolio.

So while Buffett finally embraced Apple hardware, he did so at his own pace—and only after Apple stock helped add tens of billions to his bottom line.

Because for Buffett, it's never been about chasing trends. It's about buying value and holding it.

Even if that means holding a flip phone long past its expiration date.

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