The world's most valuable company will start paying its first dividends since 1995 - a regular quarterly payout of $2.65 a share - in July, and buy back up to $10 billion of its stock beginning in the next fiscal year.
The $10 billion annual dividend program, which Cook said will be reviewed periodically, ranks among the largest current U.S. corporate cash payouts.
Yet it disappointed some fund managers, given a 1.8 percent dividend yield that lags the Standard & Poor's 500 average and its modest size versus a $98 billion war chest Apple has accumulated selling Macintosh computers and iPhones.
On Monday, the company said it had sold 3 million of its latest, 4G-enabled iPads, setting a first-weekend record for the line of tablet computers.
Cook told analysts on Monday that "making great products" remained top priority, echoing the sentiments of his former boss, who died last October after a long battle with cancer.
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