INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Billionaire Warren Buffett has said he would love to see Apple Inc shares decline in price so he could buy more
He is getting his wish.Apple's warning on Wednesday about weak iPhone demand in holiday quarter due to slower sales in China sent its stock
down 7.5 per cent during after-hours trading
Class B shares of Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc traded down 2 per cent in same session on Wall Street.Mr Buffett, folksy Nebraska
investor known more for buying railroads, energy firms and classic American corporate brands than for his acumen picking tech stocks, in
recent years has lamented missing boat on buying shares in US technology giants
He admitted an earlier investment in IBM Corp was not one of his best.Yet Mr Buffett has made Apple a centerpiece of his portfolio of other
company's stocks, touting his own use of Cupertino, California-based company's products and saying at his annual shareholders' meeting in
Omaha last May, "We would love to see Apple go down in price," so he could buy more at a bargain.Mr Buffett sees Apple more as a consumer
stock than a tech stock, reflecting iPhone's status as a must-have possession for so many people.Including its after-hours drop on
Wednesday, Apple's stock market value has tumbled to below $700 billion from over $1.1 trillion at its peak in October
Although Apple has fallen behind Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp in value, it remains one of Wall Street's most widely held
companies.Shares of Berkshire itself have held up well even as broader market sank last quarter
Last year, Berkshire returned 2.8 per cent, while SP 500 fell 4.4 per cent, including reinvested dividends.But $3 billion hit to Berkshire's
Apple shares in evening trading on Wednesday could show in future reported earnings
Those figures do not reflect any long-term gains on Berkshire's investments, and Mr Buffett has encouraged investors to ignore profit
statistic mandated by US accounting practices.
