Has Salesforce split its stock? CRM's stock split history explained

As one of the world’s biggest tech companies, Salesforce (CRM) has revolutionized businesses by automating and centralizing their data.

Its cloud technology provides businesses with a “360-degree view” of their sales, customer service, and marketing operations, helping them collaborate better, increase productivity, and become more profitable.

In 2024, Salesforce introduced “Agentforce,” a suite of AI agents that helps businesses “work smarter, be more responsive, and build better relationships” with their customers—often without human oversight.

Salesforce’s success can be seen through its stock. Benzinga reported that CRM has generated an average annual return of 16.56% in the past 20 years, which is 7.99% better than the S&P 500.

In fact, if you had bought $1,000 worth of shares 20 years ago, you’d be sitting on $20,797.11 in late March 2026.

But unlike Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), and other tech companies, Salesforce has only executed one split in its 22-year history.

What does that mean for investors?

When did Salesforce split its stock?

In April 2013, Salesforce announced a four-for-one (4:1) stock split, increasing the number of authorized shares of CRM stock from 400 million to 1.6 billion.

Shareholders on record as of April 3, 2013, received three additional shares for every share they owned.

This differs from Microsoft, which has split its stock 9 times since its March 1986 IPO, and Apple, whose stock has split  5 times since it went public in 1980. Even Oracle (ORCL), where Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff worked before co-founding his company in 1999, has split its stock 10 times since its March 1987 IPO.

The question is, does it matter?

Related: What does Salesforce do? Who uses it & how it changed everything

Why stock splits are good for investors

Stock splits increase a company’s number of shares outstanding while lowering share prices. This makes shares more affordable for individual investors. It can also improve a stock’s liquidity and increase trading volume, often reducing volatility.

Stock splits also send a psychological message to Wall Street, signaling confidence in a company’s future. This is because stock splits typically occur after a company’s stock price has risen significantly, suggesting that management believes the upward trend will continue.

This often fuels short-term buying momentum.

Related: Is Salesforce a good long-term investment? Its buy-and-hold prospects explained

Why stock splits no longer matter

The thing is, a stock split does not fundamentally change a company’s value. A common analogy used is that a stock split “cuts a pizza into more slices,” but you still have the same amount of pizza overall.

Dow company histories:

History of Microsoft: Company timeline & factsHistory of Coca-Cola: Timeline, facts & milestonesHistory of Nike: Company timeline and facts

Companies had previously executed stock splits because, before the advent of automated trading systems, it wasn’t possible to purchase fractional shares of a company’s stock. Back then, higher-priced ($1,000 or more) stocks were simply inaccessible to individual investors — because they’d need a grand to purchase a single share.  

Interestingly, Berkshire Hathaway Class A (BRK.A) shares, which are considered the world’s most expensive stock, trading around $703,000, have never split. Berkshire did this to filter out day traders and other short-term investors who aren’t aligned with the company’s long-term objectives.

At Berkshire Hathaway’s 1995 shareholder meeting, Warren Buffett himself explained that splitting the stock “would get a shareholder base that would not have the level of sophistication and the synchronization of objectives with us that we have now.”

But while stock splits are less common today than they were, say, in the 1990s, the practice has started making a comeback in recent years. CNBC reported that this may be because “the price of some stocks reached absurd levels,” such as Chipotle (CMG), which traded above $3,000 per share before splitting 50-for-1 in June 2024. Or Nvidia (NVDA), which was around $1,200 per share before it split 10-for-1 the same month.

Related: How many employees does Salesforce have in 2026? CRM’s workforce, locations & layoffs

#Salesforce #split #stock #CRM039s #stock #split #history #explained