Companies Owned by Apple (2026)

Is Apple a Delaware company, and why does that matter?

Apple is best known as a California company — the spaceship campus in Cupertino, the retail stores, the keynote stage — but the entity that legally is Apple, Apple Inc., is incorporated in the State of Delaware. Apple reincorporated in Delaware around 2007, joining the large majority of major US public companies that choose Delaware as their legal home while keeping their offices and staff somewhere else entirely.

That split between where a company is incorporated and where it operates is the single most useful idea on this page. A state of incorporation is a legal jurisdiction, not a physical address. Apple's choice of Delaware governs its corporate law, its shareholder framework, and the court that hears its disputes — not where iPhones are designed. The same logic lets a founder anywhere in the world form a Delaware LLC without ever setting foot in the state.

Apple holds its operations and acquisitions through a web of entities, and the brands below are the ones it genuinely owns. Where a name is widely assumed to be Apple-owned but is not, we say so plainly, because confusing a supplier or partner with a subsidiary is one of the most common errors in writing about big companies.

It also helps to define what "owned" means before listing anything. A company is a subsidiary when a parent controls it and consolidates it into the parent's financial statements — usually through majority ownership of its shares. That is a higher bar than a partnership, a long-term supply contract, a licensing deal, or even a minority investment, all of which leave the other company independent. Throughout this page, "owned by Apple" means a genuine subsidiary or fully owned asset that Apple acquired, not a firm Apple merely buys from, invests in, or collaborates with. Holding that line is what separates an accurate ownership map from the inflated lists that circulate online.

What is Apple's biggest acquisition, and does it still own it?

Apple's largest acquisition by reported price is Beats, bought in 2014 for roughly $3 billion. The deal had two parts: Beats Electronics, the headphone and speaker maker co-founded by Dr. Dre and music executive Jimmy Iovine, and Beats Music, a subscription streaming service whose team and technology fed into what became Apple Music. More than a decade later, Beats is still an Apple-owned brand, sold alongside AirPods rather than folded out of existence.

Beats is unusual among Apple acquisitions because the brand survives. Apple more often absorbs a company's technology and team and retires the name. A frequent point of confusion is Dr. Dre himself: he co-founded Beats and joined Apple in the deal, but a founder is a person, not a subsidiary. The company Apple owns is Beats; the co-founder is not part of the corporate structure. We hedge the exact figure — public reporting clusters around $3 billion — because deal prices are often rounded or partly undisclosed.

Which software, music, and technology brands does Apple actually own?

Several recognizable apps are Apple subsidiaries or fully owned products. Shazam, the song-identification service, was acquired around 2017 to 2018 for a figure widely reported near $400 million; it still runs and was made ad-free under Apple. Dark Sky, the hyperlocal weather app, was acquired in 2020, its technology was woven into Apple's own Weather app, and the standalone app was eventually shut down. Texture, a digital magazine service, was bought in 2018 and became the foundation of Apple News+.

More recently, Apple acquired the image-editing app Pixelmator in 2024, a deal that drew attention because Pixelmator was a beloved independent Mac developer. The pattern across these is consistent: Apple buys a focused product, keeps the parts that strengthen its own services, and either continues the brand or migrates users into a first-party app. These are genuine acquisitions with public announcements, not licensing deals or partnerships.

We deliberately omit dozens of smaller, undisclosed acquisitions here. Apple's leadership has said it buys a company every few weeks on average, but many are quiet talent-and-technology purchases with no surviving brand. Listing names we cannot verify would defeat the purpose, so this page sticks to the acquisitions with a clear public record. If a brand is not here, treat it as unconfirmed rather than assuming it is or is not Apple-owned.

Two older acquisitions matter far beyond their size, and they explain why Apple buys companies in the first place. NeXT, the company Steve Jobs founded after leaving Apple, was acquired in 1996 for a figure commonly reported around $400 million. The deal did two enormous things: it brought Jobs back to Apple, and NeXTSTEP became the technical foundation of macOS and, by extension, iOS. Few acquisitions in technology history have had a larger long-term effect for the price paid, which is why it is so often cited as the most consequential deal Apple ever made.

PrimeSense, an Israeli depth-sensing company, was acquired in 2013. Its motion- and depth-sensing technology is widely credited as a building block of Face ID, which arrived on iPhone X in 2017. PrimeSense is a good example of the dominant pattern: Apple often buys a company not for its brand but for a specific technology and the engineers who built it, then folds both into its own hardware until the original name effectively disappears. Where the brand adds consumer value — Beats, Shazam — it tends to survive; where the value is purely technical — PrimeSense, NeXT's underlying software — the name is absorbed and the technology lives on inside Apple's products.

For a founder, the lesson is less about which apps changed hands and more about the wrapper. Every one of these deals moved assets into Apple Inc. or one of its subsidiaries — a formal legal entity that can own intellectual property, sign contracts, and be sued or consolidated as a unit. That is exactly what an LLC does for a one-person business: it gives your work a legal owner that is separate from you personally, so the business can hold its own assets and accounts under its own name.

Which brands are wrongly assumed to be owned by Apple?

This is where most articles go wrong, so it deserves its own section. The companies most often confused as Apple-owned are its biggest suppliers — and Apple owns none of them. Foxconn (Hon Hai Technology Group) assembles a large share of Apple's products but is an independent Taiwanese manufacturer that also builds devices for other brands. TSMC fabricates Apple's custom chips on its most advanced process nodes, yet it is an independent foundry serving many customers. Corning supplies cover glass for iPhone and Apple Watch; Apple has invested in Corning's US manufacturing through its supplier fund, but an investment or long-term contract is not ownership.

The distinction is not pedantic. Ownership means the parent controls and consolidates the entity; a supply relationship, even a deep and exclusive one, leaves both companies independent. The same care applies to your own structure: a registered agent, a bank, or a payment processor works with your Delaware LLC, but none of them owns it, and your LLC does not own them.

A second category of confusion is people Apple works with rather than companies Apple owns. Dr. Dre co-founded Beats and joined Apple, but he is a founder and executive, not a subsidiary. The same is true of partners who appear in Apple marketing — content studios that make Apple TV+ shows, accessory makers in the Made for iPhone program, and chip-design firms whose patents Apple licenses are partners or licensors, not owned companies. When you read that a brand is "behind" an Apple product, check whether the relationship is ownership, a license, a supply contract, or a one-off partnership, because those are four very different legal arrangements that get blurred together in headlines.

How does Apple hold its subsidiaries through Delaware?

Large multinationals rarely run every operation through one company. Instead, a parent holds subsidiaries — some operating, some purely for holding assets — and US subsidiaries are frequently formed as Delaware entities for the same legal predictability the parent enjoys. Apple's public filings describe a structure that includes US entities and a documented set of overseas holding companies, such as the Irish-incorporated Apple Operations International.

The mechanics scale down cleanly. A US founder who wants to separate two product lines might form two Delaware LLCs, or one LLC that owns another. A holding-and-operating split that a multinational uses across continents is the same idea a solo founder uses across a single product. If your plan involves outside investors, the structure usually shifts toward a Delaware C-Corp rather than an LLC, because that is the form venture investors expect — and it is the same form Apple itself takes as a public corporation.

There is a reason holding structures exist, and it is not only tax. Separating assets into distinct entities limits how far a problem in one part of the business can spread. If a group keeps a risky operating venture in one subsidiary, a claim against that venture generally reaches that subsidiary's assets rather than the entire group. A founder uses the same logic at small scale: a real-estate investor might hold each property in its own Delaware LLC, and an agency owner might keep a client-services LLC separate from an LLC that holds intellectual property. You do not need to copy Apple's dozens of entities, but understanding why the layering exists helps you decide how many entities your own situation actually calls for — often just one to start. This is general information, not legal advice; an attorney can tell you when a second entity is worth the added cost and bookkeeping.

You do not need Apple's complexity. The point is that the Delaware entity is a standard, reusable building block. Whether you stack one or one hundred, each one is formed, governed, and maintained the same way. See our how it works walkthrough for the founder version of that process.

Why is a Delaware corporation the default for companies like Apple?

Delaware's appeal comes down to three durable advantages. First, the Court of Chancery is a business-only court with judges who decide corporate cases without juries, producing fast, expert rulings. Second, decades of decisions have built a deep, predictable body of case law, so boards and investors can anticipate how disputes will be handled. Third, the Delaware statute is flexible and frequently updated to keep pace with modern business.

For a company with public shareholders, that predictability is worth more than matching the state of incorporation to the office address. It is why so many household names, Apple included, are Delaware corporations regardless of where they are based. The same advantages flow down to a one-person LLC: you inherit a mature legal framework that banks, payment processors, and counterparties already recognize. Our Delaware LLC formation guide covers how that recognition smooths the practical steps that follow.

Recognition is the underrated benefit for a small founder. When a US bank, a payment processor, or an overseas supplier sees a Delaware entity, they are looking at a structure they have evaluated countless times before, which reduces the friction at every gate you pass through. A founder is not buying Delaware's courtroom advantages directly — most LLCs never see the Court of Chancery — but they are buying the credibility and familiarity that the same legal home confers. That is the quiet reason a Delaware LLC tends to be an easy default for an internationally based founder building a US-facing business, even though Wyoming and other states are valid alternatives depending on your priorities around privacy and ongoing fees.

What does it cost to maintain a Delaware entity each year?

Apple, as a Delaware C-corporation, faces corporate-level obligations: a franchise tax calculated on a corporate basis that can be substantial, plus an annual report. An LLC is far lighter. A Delaware LLC pays a flat $300 franchise tax due June 1 each year, starting in year two, and files no annual report. Importantly, the corporate franchise-tax methods you may read about — the authorized shares method and the assumed par value method — apply only to corporations, never to LLCs.

Our service is a single flat fee of $397, with the Delaware state filing fee already included, so there is no separate state charge to add on. From year two, your ongoing cost is the $300 franchise tax plus about $99 to renew your registered agent. Miss the June 1 franchise-tax deadline and Delaware adds a $200 penalty plus 1.5% interest per month, and the LLC loses good standing — which is exactly why we track the date for you. The full breakdown sits on our Delaware franchise tax and Delaware LLC cost pages.

Can a non-resident founder use the same Delaware vehicle?

Yes — and this is the practical heart of the page. You do not need a US Social Security Number, an ITIN, a US visa, or a US address to form a Delaware LLC or to obtain its EIN. The EIN is requested with Form SS-4, which the IRS processes by fax or mail for applicants without an SSN, which is why it takes 2 to 4 weeks rather than minutes. Once the EIN is issued, you can open a US business bank account and, where relevant, apply for a payment processor.

Banking and Stripe approvals are always the provider's decision — approval is not guaranteed — so a careful, consistent application matters, and your specialist helps you apply to more than one if the first declines. Most founders are approved for a US account within 1 to 5 business days after the EIN lands. The full path is laid out in our Delaware LLC for non-residents guide, with details on Delaware LLC banking and opening a Stripe account.

The sequence matters as much as the steps. The most common reason a bank or payment application is delayed is applying before the EIN has finished processing, so the order is always to form the LLC, get the EIN, then bank. The next most common reason is mismatched details — a name, address, or spelling that differs across your passport, the Certificate of Formation, and the bank application — which causes reviewers to pause. Keep every detail identical across documents, describe your business clearly, and you remove most of the friction. None of this guarantees an approval, because each provider reviews independently and makes its own decision, but a clean, consistent application gives you the best chance, and applying to a second provider if the first declines is routine. We serve founders from 40+ countries through exactly this process, all of it remote.

What ongoing US filings does a foreign-owned Delaware LLC face?

One federal filing is easy to miss and expensive to skip. If a non-US person owns 25% or more of a single-member Delaware LLC treated as a disregarded entity, the IRS requires Form 5472 each year, attached to a pro forma Form 1120. It reports reportable transactions between you and your LLC, such as capital you contribute. The penalty for failing to file is $25,000 under IRC 6038A, so most non-resident owners treat it as mandatory. It is due April 15 and can be extended with Form 7004. Our Form 5472 for Delaware LLCs guide walks through it, and the broader picture lives on our Delaware LLC taxes page.

Beneficial ownership reporting has also changed and remains in flux. A March 2025 FinCEN interim final rule removed BOI reporting obligations for US domestic reporting companies; under that rule, only certain foreign reporting companies registered to do business in the US must report, and US persons are generally exempt. Because this area is still evolving, confirm the current FinCEN status before relying on any summary. For US tax-reporting thresholds, note that a payment platform issues a 1099-K only when payments exceed both $20,000 and 200 transactions, after the 2025 repeal of the lower threshold — we flag this because outdated figures circulate widely.

What is the founder takeaway from Apple's structure?

Apple's empire — Beats, Shazam, NeXT, PrimeSense, Dark Sky, Texture, Pixelmator and more — sits on top of an ordinary legal foundation: Delaware entities. The brands are extraordinary; the building block is not. That is genuinely good news for a small founder, because the exact same vehicle that anchors a trillion-dollar company is available to you for a flat fee.

You will not be acquiring headphone makers or weather apps. You will be forming one clean Delaware LLC to hold a real business, get a US bank account and payment processing, and present a recognized US identity to customers and partners. We serve founders from 40+ countries, and the process is fully remote: you sign electronically and work with a specialist over WhatsApp. When you are ready, our formation and EIN for a Delaware LLC guides are the next step, with a registered agent included in year one.

It is worth stating the comparison honestly one more time, because it is easy to over-read the Apple connection. You and Apple share a state of incorporation and a type of legal vehicle, and nothing more. Apple is a public C-corporation with a global subsidiary map, audited filings, and a board answerable to millions of shareholders; your LLC is a single, simple entity you control directly. What transfers is not the scale but the foundation — the idea that a serious business, large or small, belongs inside a formal entity rather than being run out of your personal name and personal bank account. That is the practical reason to form one, and the reason the same Delaware framework that anchors Apple is genuinely useful to a founder operating on a budget of a few hundred dollars.

Many of these companies chose Delaware for the same reasons founders do today — the Court of Chancery, flexible LLC statutes, and strong privacy protections. Form your Delaware LLC for $397, all-inclusive, in 48 hours. Form your Delaware LLC → | Read the complete Delaware LLC guide →