Cai Lian News Agency, February 3 (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) On Friday morning Beijing time, Apple, the world's leading consumer electronics and the largest in the US stock market value, released its fiscal 2023 first quarter report. Due to the well-known iPhone 14 Pro supply chain issues, Apple's revenue in the last three months of last year saw its first year-over-year decline after 2019. As of press time, the company's share price fell more than 4% after hours.
Source: Apple
According to statistics, today is also the second time since August 2017 that Apple's revenue has fallen short of expectations, and it is also the first time in nearly seven years that profits have fallen short of expectations.
Unlike most U.S. stocks, Apple's earnings report is fairly concise and easy to understand. In the last three months of last year, the company achieved a total revenue of $117.15 billion, down 5% year-on-year; Net income fell 12 percent to $30 billion, or $1.88 per share. In the hardware product line, in addition to iPad revenue of $9.4 billion, which increased by 29.66% year-on-year, which exceeded expectations, iPhone ($65.78 billion), Mac ($7.74 billion) and other products ($13.48 billion) all fell year-on-year and fell short of expectations. Services revenue, which includes the App Store and Apple TV+, was $20.77 billion, up 6.4% year-over-year.
In contrast, Refinitiv's analysts are expected to be $121.19 billion in revenue and $1.94 per share, while revenue for the iPhone, iPad and Mac product lines is expected to be $68.29 billion, $7.76 billion and $9.63 billion, respectively. Other products and services revenue is expected to be $15.23 billion and $20.67 billion, respectively.
For this earnings report, Apple CEO Tim Cook interpreted that the company estimates that without the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max supply chain problems, iPhone revenue should be able to rise year-on-year. Cook also stressed that the current iPhone production capacity has returned to a level that the company is satisfied with.
In addition to contingencies in the supply chain, the overall downturn in the consumer electronics market has put additional pressure on the company. Sales of wearables such as iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch all declined year-over-year in the quarter.
In the context of the smartphone and PC markets entering a trough, although Apple's overall performance is better than most competitors, economic headwinds will undoubtedly have an impact on Apple products positioned in the mid-to-high-end market. According to IDC data, global smartphone shipments plummeted 18% year-on-year to 300 million units in the fourth quarter of last year, which is also the largest plunge since statistics were available. Although Apple is the least affected of the top manufacturers, the decline in shipments is still 14.9%.
Global mobile phone shipment data for the fourth quarter of 2022, source: IDC
Of course, this earnings report is not all bad news, Apple announced that by the end of 2022 the global activation of 2 billion Apple devices, 200 million more than last January. Cook interpreted that this phenomenon shows that consumers have switched from Android to Apple, and many consumers have tried to buy Apple Watch for the first time.
In addition, as the only company in the super tech weights that did not announce layoffs, Cook also said that the company is cutting spending and slowing hiring. Apple's CEO said: "We have recognized that the environment is difficult, so we are cutting costs and taking a very cautious and thoughtful approach to job fairs. ”
(Cai Lian News Agency, Shi Zhengcheng)