Investment is actually about returns. Growth is a means of getting returns, but not the only way. A large, stable, profitable company with no growth prospects is not a poor investment if they pay out returns.

Doesn't have to be. A non-growning company that is yielding high profit can still be worth a large amount of money.

Indeed. As profitable companies get big and struggle more with growth, they can do stock buybacks, or pay out dividends. Plenty of stocks have held strong with small growth % but non-trivial dividends. I agree, when talking about companies this size, it isn't all about growth.

Presumably Apple has enough cash on hand so that it could "pay back" its current shareholders by big (relatively speaking) dividends and even stock buy-backs, but not sure how much that influences the buy/sell decisions of retail/small stock-exchange investors.