Apple posted a decline in quarterly revenues for the first time in three and a half years after «significant» supply chain disruptions in China delayed deliveries of iPhones during the important holiday
period. The worse than expected performance highlighted Apple’s dependence on China for manufacturing and came after shipments of its high-end iPhones were hit by an outbreak of Covid-19 at an assembly hub run by partner Foxconn in Zhengzhou. Apple posted total revenues of $117.2bn for the latest quarter, a fall of 5.5 per cent compared with the same period of 2021 and below analyst forecasts for $121.1bn. «In total, we expect our March quarter year-over-year revenue performance to be similar to the December quarter,» Cook said, adding that sales of Macs and iPads would probably fall by double digits in part because of a «challenging» economic environment.
Shares of Apple fell by more than 3 per cent in after-hours trading on Thursday but bounced back by the same amount yesterday morning. Apple’s revenue shortfall came as Amazon and Alphabet pointed to further weakening in some core markets in the latest quarter. Alphabet’s revenue came in below expectations as its advertising revenue fell for only the second time, partly because of the strength of the US dollar and comparisons with rapid growth a year before. Despite the lacklustre earnings and outlook; Apple did not announce any job cuts or a cost-cutting programme, marking it out as the only large tech company to avoid mass redundancies.
Apple did not provide any forward guidance, something it has not done for three years owing to what it describes as pandemic uncertainty.
If Apple sticks to their guns and doesn't fire people then they will earn even more trust from its clients. Right now, they are the only large tech company that hasn't felt the need to lay off people.
ReplyDeleteHuge companies like Microsoft just fired so many people and it makes no sense. Their profits are immense so they would have clearly done very well even with those 10000+ people. It's disappointing and a bad look for such companies to just fire people as soon as things are not going so well.
Delete