Apple shares finally closed above $600—the first time since October 2012. A day after the milestone, CNBC's Jim Cramer identified 68 million reasons behind the stock's comeback.
That's how many dollars incoming retail chief Angela Ahrendts stands to make off stock awards at Apple, according to The Financial Times. The former CEO of luxury retailer Burberry should help add something sorely lacking from Apple's retail division since its brick-and-mortar stores opened years ago, said Cramer, whose charitable trust owns shares of Apple.
Cramer added that Ahrendts has the best digital retail strategy he has ever seen.
"What has Apple lacked?" Cramer said Tuesday on "Squawk on the Street." "It's lacked pizzazz. You get new products ... and you get the best sales person on Earth who understand digital? That's explains a lot of the stock."
Read More Apple's Angela Ahrendts in line for $68M payday
Apple shares hovered just above $600 when trading opened Tuesday morning. Cramer said the tech giant's surprise 7-to-1 stock split and buyback expansion two weeks ago was being well-received on Wall Street. It was the kind of "opportunistic" buyback that other companies should emulate, Cramer said.
"You see a lot of stupid buybacks," Cramer said. "This is the kind of genius buyback that a lot of execs should pay attention to."
—By CNBC's Jeff Morganteen