Apple on Thursday reported quarterly revenue and profit above Wall Street’s expectations, with iPhone sales rising and wearables sales slipping lower than analysts had feared despite a unbroken slump in the buyer electronics market and a cloudy economic outlook.
Apple said sales for its fiscal second quarter ended April 1 fell 2.5% to $94.84 billion, higher than analyst expectations of a 4.4% decline to $93 billion, in line with data from Refinitiv.
Profit was flat at $1.52 per share, compared with estimates of a 5.7% fall to $1.43 per share, in line with Refinitiv data.
A 1.5% rise in Apple’s iPhone revenue contrasted with the broader consumer electronics industry, which is grappling with a decline in sales of smartphones, tablets and PCs as consumers and businesses who scooped up electronics throughout the pandemic tighten spending amid rising rates of interest and economic uncertainty.
The corporate also held its dividend and stock buyback programs roughly in step with its last update to them a yr ago, approving $90 billion in additional buybacks.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that the corporate set a fiscal second-quarter record for iPhone sales, thanks partly to picking up latest users in markets equivalent to India, where Cook recently traveled for the opening of the corporate’s first retail stores within the country.
“We were thrilled by our performance in emerging markets,” Cook said. “We set records for the iPhone installed base in every geographic segment, and we had very strong ‘latest to’ (sales in) emerging markets, particularly in Brazil, India and Mexico.”
Cook also said supply-chain snarls have vanished.
“We had no material shortages in any respect throughout the quarter across any of the products,” he said.
But not all of Apple’s business lines were proof against the electronics slump, with sales of Macs falling sharply while iPad revenue slipped.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the corporate set a fiscal second-quarter record for iPhone sales.AFP via Getty Images
Sales in China also dropped 2.9% to $17.8 billion, a rather larger drop than overall revenue.
Other firms within the industry have predicted a rebound within the second half of the yr, and Wall Street expects Apple to recuperate faster and show modest year-over-year revenue growth during its fiscal third quarter ending in June.
Apple executives are expected to offer a forecast on a conference call with investors in a while Thursday.
Apple has in recent weeks announced latest service businesses equivalent to a high-yield savings account, but investors are still waiting to see the corporate’s next major hardware product.
Bloomberg has reported the iPhone maker could unveil a mixed-reality headset as soon as next month, when it holds its annual software developer conference.
IPhone sales rose 1.5% to $51.33 billion, compared with analyst expectations of a 3.3% decline to $48.9 billion, in line with Refinitiv.
Those results occurred against the backdrop of a 13% decline in global smartphone shipments throughout the first three months of 2023, during which the research firm Canalys said Apple gained market share against Android rivals.
Mac sales fell greater than 30% to $7.17 billion compared with analyst estimates of a 25% decline to $7.8 billion, in line with Refinitiv.
On the whole, the buyer electronics industry is grappling with a decline in sales of smartphones, tablets and PCs.ZUMAPRESS.com
Apple’s sales fared only barely higher than PC unit shipments out there, which fell 33% within the calendar first quarter, in line with Canalys data.
Sales in Apple’s wearables business, which incorporates devices like AirPods and the Apple Watch, fell lower than 1% to $8.76 billion, compared with estimates of a 4.4% drop to $8.4 billion.
Apple’s biggest growth segment was its services business, which incorporates products like iCloud and Apple Pay, which grew 5.5% to $20.9 billion, in step with analyst expectations.
Cook said Apple now has 975 million subscribers on its platform, which incorporates each Apple services and third-party apps, up from 935 million last quarter and a rise of 150 million from a yr ago.
Apple said its board of directors authorized a 24 cents-per- share dividend along with share repurchases.
Each were roughly similar to the 23 cents-per-share dividend and former $90 billion share repurchase increase the corporate announced a yr ago.
Apple shares rose 1% in after-hours trading.
