Apple’s revenue rose nearly 9% year over year for the quarter ended March, the company said on Thursday, showing strong growth and investors worrying about the deteriorating macroeconomic environment that could drive demand for high-end smartphones and computers. affects.
But Apple shares fell nearly 4% in extended trading after Apple CFO Luca Maestri warned of a number of challenges in the current quarter, including supply shortages related to Covid-19, which could cost $4 billion to $4 billion. 8 billion can hurt sales. The tech giant also warned that the Covid-related lockdown in China is sapping demand.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company was “not immune” to supply chain challenges.
Here’s how Apple fared against the Refinitiv consensus estimates:
- EPS: $1.52 vs. $1.43 Estimated
- Revenue: $97.28 billion versus $93.89 billion estimated, up 8.59% year over year
- iPhone Revenue: $50.57 billion versus $47.88 billion estimated, an increase of 5.5% year over year
- Service Revenue: $19.82 billion versus $19.72 billion estimated, up 17.28% year-on-year
- Other Product Revenue: $8.81 billion versus $9.05 billion estimated, up 12.37% year over year
- Mac Revenue: $10.44 billion versus $9.25 billion estimated, up 14.73% year over year
- iPad Revenue: $7.65 billion versus $7.14 billion estimated, up 1.92% year over year
- gross margin: 43.7% vs 43.1% estimated
Apple did not provide any forecast for the current quarter – the company has not provided official revenue guidance since February 2020, citing uncertainty associated with the pandemic.
In addition, Apple said its board of directors authorized $90 billion in share buybacks, keeping its momentum as the public company that spends most of its time buying shares. It spent $88.3 billion on buybacks in 2021, according to the S&P Dow Jones Indices.
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Apple raised its dividend 5% to 23 cents per share.
The smartphone business grew more than 5% during the quarter, providing further evidence that the current iPhone 13 model is selling well.
Cook said the iPhone business had a successful quarter with sales to so-called Switchers, or people who previously had an Android phone but decided to buy an iPhone.
“We had a record level of upgraders during the quarter and we developed switchers, strong double digits,” Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach.
The fall in earnings also suggests that Apple’s premium smartphone business may be untouched by concerns about declining consumer confidence. Sales growth year-on-year came despite a tougher year-on-year iPhone comparison, as new iPhones were first launched in 2021.
“It’s clearly a strong cycle,” Cook said.
Elsewhere, Mac computers continued to grow strongly when Apple converted its lineup to use its own M1 chips instead of Intel processors. Sales increased nearly 15% year over year to $10.44 billion.
However, Apple’s iPad business continues to slide sideways, with sales down 2.1% from a year ago, despite updated models with Apple’s M1 chip. Cook said the iPad business had “very significant supply constraints” during the quarter.
Apple’s profitable services business, which includes subscriptions, license fees and extended warranties, continues to grow strongly, growing over 17%. However, over the past two years the business has made a habit of beating Wall Street’s expectations by more than 3% and 8%, and this quarter, it exceeded Refinitiv estimates by just 0.51%.
“The [services] The comp is a little weird during Covid, because we have lockdowns and then reopenings and so on,” Maestri said in an interview with CNBC, adding that “digital stuff went through the roof” during certain periods in the last two years. “
Cook said Apple’s financial performance was “better than we anticipated.” The fastest growing region was the US, with sales up 20% during the quarter to $50.57 billion. Greater China, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, grew at a slower rate of 3.47% to $18.34 billion. Cook said that China’s lockdown related to Kovid did not affect Apple during the quarter.
