Greg Abel has assumed control of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB) from Warren Buffett, but the investment philosophy of the Oracle of Omaha remains deeply embedded in the conglomerate’s top holdings.
Berkshire’s three largest equity positions, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), American Express (NYSE: AXP), and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), together account for more than 50% of the portfolio.
Buffett has long stated that he prefers compounding businesses with wide, durable moats, and each of these three holdings fits that description precisely.
Apple represents approximately 22% of Berkshire’s equity holdings, making it the conglomerate’s single largest position by a considerable margin.
The company has built one of the most recognized premium brands in consumer technology, spanning smartphones, PCs, and other devices that follow predictable replacement cycles.
Once consumers purchase an Apple product, they typically become locked into the company’s broader ecosystem, generating high-gross-margin service revenue from cloud storage, app commissions, Apple Pay, and a search revenue-sharing arrangement with Alphabet.
American Express accounts for over 17% of Berkshire’s equity holdings, and like Apple, it is a business built around serving a more affluent customer base.
Unlike payment networks Visa and Mastercard, American Express operates a closed-loop network where it functions as both card issuer and processor, allowing it to capture revenue from both sides of each transaction.
Because its cardholders spend roughly three times the average of other consumers, American Express can charge merchants higher processing fees while also commanding premium annual fees from its members in exchange for exclusive perks.
The company also benefits from relatively low credit risk, as a significant share of its business involves charge cards requiring full monthly repayment, making it a business that would be exceptionally difficult to replicate today.
Alphabet, Berkshire’s newest top-three holding, makes up nearly 13% of the portfolio, with Buffett himself having indicated he had a hand in establishing that position.
Google remains Alphabet’s largest revenue driver, and the business is experiencing growth fueled by new AI tools including AI Overviews and AI Mode, which are deepening its dominance in search and AI discovery.
Alphabet controls key distribution channels through its ownership of Chrome, the market-leading web browser, and Android, the dominant smartphone operating system, reinforcing its moat against competitors.
Alphabet’s cloud computing division is the company’s fastest-growing segment, aided by its custom tensor processing units, which the company designed over a decade ago and has built its entire software and hardware stack around.
These custom chips provide a cost advantage over rivals that rely primarily on Nvidia graphics processing units, allowing Alphabet to train AI models and run inference more efficiently across its full suite of products.
