When a company more than $76 billion on hand to spend, what does it do with it?

As we all are well aware, Apple as a company has been extremely successful as of late. With its combination of brand-name gold status, and huge lead in high-technology – Apple has been able to not only remain as a top technology company, but also generate massive profits and sales. And because of this success in keeping customers coming even in the economic downturn, Apple now has a massive amount of cash that it can spend freely on hand. The question is, what does it do with it?

According to the company’s newest fiscal quarter report, Apple is now sitting on approximately $76.2 billion in reserves. Humorously enough, this places the company in a higher position reserve-wise than the United States government (Which has about $74 billion on hand). Needless to say, this is a huge amount of money for any company – especially considering that Apple can basically spend it on anything it wants right now.

So exactly will Apple do with the money? Well, let’s look at its choices.

First of all, the choice that stands-out the most is the choice of buying out another company. What would $76.2 billion be able to buy? To put it in perspective, Goldman Sachs is worth about $65 billion right now at market value, meaning that Apple could acquire one of the largest and most popular investment banks in the world and still have some left over.

But of course, there would really be no point in Apple obtaining Goldman Sachs, so we’ll have to look at some more realistic choices.

What about competitors? Could Apple cut out some competition by literally buying them? The answer is yes – and no.

Apple’s biggest competitor right now is Google. That company’s worth right now is approximately $195 billion, which is still out of Apple’s reach. At any rate, if Apple were to one day buy Google, I could easily see the company becoming a monopoly over the technology sector  like Microsoft once was. This leads to the question of whether a purchase like that would even be allowed by the government.

Seeing as swallowing Google is out of the question right now, what else could Apple buy? How about the Android operating system?

At first glance it seems to make sense. Android is Apple’s biggest competition in the smartphone arena right now, and acquiring the OS would defiantly give Apple a boost. However, you have to realize that this move isn’t as good as it sounds. For one, Apple is already known for its distinct iOS system. If the company were to buy Android, it doesn’t seem plausible that it would be able to do anything with it. Of course, Apple could release some sort of iPhone that has the Android OS, but that would just make the Apple brand more vague and potentially over-stretched.

Then again, there are the more realistic options, such as Facebook, Groupon, and Twitter – all companies that Apple could potentially benefit from acquiring.

The next choice that Apple could make is to give money to its investors.

This could be seen as a sign of appreciation, or a marketing tool to attract new investors. The move would benefit everyone right?

Well, kinda. You see, first of all, technology companies do not normally give large dividends to shareholders. Dividend giving is normally associated with larger, slow and steady companies, whereas a fast growing tech company like Apple usually doesn’t bestow such gifts.

Forbes’ Eric Johnson argues that

Giving money to shareholders would only perpetuate internal wealth, and not facilitate much growth for Apple…  Cash is to be used to grow the company. … They have several enormous growth opportunities ahead of them to keep up that pace, but they will take cash. I would rather Apple management have access to that cash–dry powder–than shareholders.

Of course, there is that one final option for Apple, and that is to simply do nothing.

After all, it has all the time in the world. Perhaps someday, Apple will need to use the money to pay for a lawsuit. Or maybe there will be something else in the future that could benefit the company.

Either way, only time can tell.