Apple’s $147 billion pile of cash monies now accounts for just under 10% of all corporate cash held by nonfinancial companies in the United States. But it’s not like they haven’t been trying to get rid of it. Apple has almost 10% more cash than it did last year, despite dividend payouts and buybacks.

Analysis of the cash stockpiles was conducted by financial ratings service, Moody’s. To put Apple’s dominance in perspective, the $1,47 trillion cash stockpile is the sum of over 1,000 companies.

Apple has nearly double the cash hoard of its closest rival. Microsoft are sitting in second place with their fingers in their asses with a cash stockpile of $77 billion.

Corporate cash is still concentrated in just a few hands, with the top 50 holders accounting for 62% of the total.  The companies with the five largest cash holdings – Apple, Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. , Cisco Systems Inc. and Pfizer Inc. – held more than one quarter of the cash.

[Source : WSJ]