Financial Capital

Financial Capital

Our financial capital allocation strategy focuses on building stockholder value. We have returned 95% of free cash flow to investors over the past five years.


Our Financial Capital Allocation Decisions Are Driven By Three Priorities



Invest In The Business

Our first allocation priority is to invest in R&D and capital spending to strengthen our competitive position. We are efficiently maintaining our R&D investment as a percentage of revenue and continue to make significant capital investments, increasing our 14nm and 10nm wafer capacity. We also invested in 7nm and future process development. In addition to our own manufacturing capacity, we continue to use third-party foundries to expand the ways we can support our customers.

Acquire and Integrate

Our second allocation priority is to invest in companies around the world that will complement our strategic objectives and stimulate growth of data-centric opportunities. We look for acquisitions that leverage and strengthen our capital and R&D investments. In 2020, we completed various acquisitions to expand our product offerings and the markets we serve. Those acquisitions included Moovit, which accelerates our MaaS offering and brings Mobileye closer to achieving our plan to become a complete mobility provider, including robotaxi services. We take action when investments do not meet our criteria, and in 2020 we divested the majority of our Home Gateway Platform division and signed an agreement to divest our NAND memory business.

Return Cash to Stockholders

Our third allocation priority is to return cash to stockholders. We achieve this through our dividend and share repurchase programs. In March, we suspended stock repurchases in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and in August we entered into $10.0 billion in ASR agreements in response to our belief that our stock was trading below its intrinsic valuation at that time. In Q1 2021, we intend to complete the remaining $2.4 billion of our $20.0 billion planned repurchases announced in October 2019. During 2020, we paid $5.6 billion in dividends and repurchased $14.2 billion in shares. Our approach has reduced diluted shares outstanding over time.

Dividends Per Share



R&D Capital Investments $B
Acquisitions
Cash To Stockholders