Investor Spotlight · Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett's Coca-Cola Dividend Machine
35 years · 400M shares · one position, never sold
Between 1988 and 1994 Berkshire Hathaway paid $1.299 billion for what would become 400 million split-adjusted shares of The Coca-Cola Company. Buffett has not sold a single share since. The position now pays Berkshire roughly $832M a year in cash dividends — about $26.36 every second of every day.
Sources: Berkshire 1988 / 1989 / 1994 letters · KO dividends & historical prices from our data · prices as of Jun 12, 2026
Buffett called Coca-Cola "the kind of business I understand" — a global brand, durable pricing power, and a dividend that has compounded for 35+ years.
Buffett's Coca-Cola, in one number
Buffett's slice of every Coca-Cola sold (live)
since you opened this pageCoca-Cola Company sells ≈ 2.2B servings worldwide every day. Berkshire owns about 9.3% of the company — which works out to ~2,362 servings and $26.36 in dividend cash accruing to Berkshire every second.
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The position today
Buffett didn't buy a 60% yield. He bought a ~3% yield and let the dividend grow underneath an unchanging cost basis for 35 years.
YoC equals annual dividend per share divided by average cost per share, times 100.
Buffett's KO dividends, per period
| Period | Dividend income |
|---|---|
| Per second | $26.36 |
| Per minute | $1,581.87 |
| Per hour | $94,912.16 |
| Per day | $2,277,891.85 |
| Per week | $15,945,242.98 |
| Per month | $69,333,333.33 |
| Per year | $832,000,000 |
- Per second$26.36
- Per minute$1,581.87
- Per hour$94,912.16
- Per day$2,277,891.85
- Per week$15,945,242.98
- Per month$69,333,333.33
- Per year$832,000,000
The 7-year accumulation (1988-1994)
Verified purchase events (Berkshire annual letters)
| When | Shares (raw) | Shares (split-adj) | Cost | $/share (raw) | $/share (split-adj) | From the letter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 1988 | 14,172,500 | 226,760,000 | $593M | $41.81 | $2.61 | “We expect to hold these securities for a long time. In fact, when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.” |
| Q4 1989 | 9,177,500 | 146,840,000 | $431M | $47.01 | $2.94 | “We continue to concentrate our investments in a very few companies that we try to understand well. There are only a small number of businesses in which we have strong long-term confidence.” |
| Q4 1994 | 1,650,000 | 26,400,000 | $275M | $166.67 | $10.42 | “In 1988 and 1989 Berkshire bought 23.35 million shares of Coca-Cola... A few years ago we paid $1.3 billion for our Coca-Cola shares, which we could now sell for about $5 billion. Were we to sell, the company that has earned over $1 billion would not exist for us.” |
| Total / avg | 25,000,000 | 400,000,000 | $1.30B | $51.96 | $3.25 |
- Q4 1988226,760,000
- Q4 1989146,840,000
- Q4 199426,400,000
- Total / avg400,000,000
Annual cheque to Berkshire (1988-2026)
Calculated as adj_dividend × shares held on each ex-date — accounts for the 7-year accumulation window so 1988-1994 reflects a smaller share count.* Current calendar year = cash paid year-to-date only (not a full year); the shorter bar is not a dividend cut.
Breaking the zero barrier — cumulative dividends vs $1.299B cost basis
Once the dividend line crosses the dashed cost-basis line, every dollar of dividend is pure profit on top of the original investment.
Dividend payback calendar
Cost basis: $1.30B. Cumulative dividends today: $12.87B. Cost was fully recouped in 2002; everything since is pure profit.
- 25% of cost basis1995 · $0.32B
- 50% of cost basis1998 · $0.65B
- 100% of cost basis2002 · $1.30B
- Today · 990% of cost basis2026 · $12.87B
The forgotten 14 years (1998–2012)
Dividend per share climbs every year; the split-adjusted year-end price stays choppy with little net progress — the "sideways" decade for shareholders who only watched the quote.
Drawdowns vs the dividend
| Event | Years | KO drawdown | Dividend per share | Recovery to new ATH | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dot-com bust | 2000-2002 | -30% | +27% | ≈ 11 yrs to new ATH (2013) | Annual dividend per share grew from $0.68 to $0.80. |
| Global Financial Crisis | 2007-2009 | -40% | +24% | ≈ 19 mo to new ATH | KO raised the dividend in both 2008 and 2009. |
| 2020 crash | Mar-Apr 2020 | -25% | +2% | ≈ 14 mo to new ATH | KO declared its 58th consecutive annual dividend increase. |
Dot-com bust
- Years
- 2000-2002
- KO drawdown
- -30%
- Dividend per share
- +27%
- Recovery
- ≈ 11 yrs to new ATH (2013)
- Notes
- Annual dividend per share grew from $0.68 to $0.80.
Global Financial Crisis
- Years
- 2007-2009
- KO drawdown
- -40%
- Dividend per share
- +24%
- Recovery
- ≈ 19 mo to new ATH
- Notes
- KO raised the dividend in both 2008 and 2009.
2020 crash
- Years
- Mar-Apr 2020
- KO drawdown
- -25%
- Dividend per share
- +2%
- Recovery
- ≈ 14 mo to new ATH
- Notes
- KO declared its 58th consecutive annual dividend increase.
What if you'd bought with Buffett?
Mirror calculator: what if you'd invested with Buffett?
Approximated using Buffett's average split-adjusted cost ($3.25/share). "Total received" adds today's value of those shares to actual per-payment dividends since your start date (each payment × Berkshire shares held that day, scaled by your investment ÷ Buffett's total cost).
Cash-out vs DRIP
Berkshire's actual share count (cash) vs a hypothetical reinvestment of every dividend back into KO once Buffett finished buying (1995+), priced at each year's split-adjusted close.
DRIP simulation uses each calendar year's split-adjusted close as the reinvestment price (a real DRIP plan would buy at every ex-date — the difference is small but slightly favors the chart). Buffett deliberately chose cash dividends: Berkshire prefers redeploying capital into new businesses and benefits from the corporate Dividends Received Deduction.
In today's dollars
Using CPI from 1988 → today (×2.75).
Even after adjusting for 35+ years of inflation, Berkshire's annual KO dividend ($832M) still pays back a meaningful slice of the inflation-adjusted cost every year.
Buffett vs the alternatives
Buffett's KO yield on cost vs the 10-year Treasury
Once Coca-Cola's dividend grew enough, Buffett's annual cash yield on the original $3.25 cost basis surpassed the 10Y Treasury — and kept rising. For the current calendar year, the Buffett line uses the same trailing-twelve-month rate as the headline cards (not cash paid year-to-date only).
The lesson isn't "buy a 60% yield" — that yield doesn't exist on the open market. It's that a modest 3% starting yield, paid by a business that grows its dividend for decades, can compound into something extraordinary if you simply do nothing.
Coca-Cola vs PepsiCo dividends
How does the company Buffett owns stack up against its forever-rival? Side-by-side yield, growth streak, and payout-ratio dive — including who has the longer consecutive-raise record.
Open KO vs PEP comparison →Buffett's slice of every Coca-Cola sold
For every Coca-Cola sold worldwide, Berkshire economically owns ≈ 9.3¢ of the company that made it.
Computed as 400M / KO diluted shares outstanding (4.31B diluted shares per latest annual report).Buffett's stake of 400,000,000 shares is one of the most concentrated public-market positions any global investor has held for this long.