Apple is the world’s largest consumer technology giant. Outstanding leader in revenues, profits and market capitalization, it sells a good number of products and services that are among the elite of their segments. But speaking in economic terms there is a very clear conclusion: Apple is a mobile company.
We have had the last sample in the presentation of financial results for the first quarter of 2023, highly anticipated by analysts to verify the reality of a complicated 2023 in macroeconomic terms and that is not being positive for the technology industry after the strong increases during the last two years of the COVID pandemic.
iPhone: the great bulwark of Apple
But Apple is Apple and its phones continue to sell ‘like hotcakes’. Apple sold iPhones worth 51.3 billion dollars in just one quarter. A spectacular figure that exceeded the expectations of Wall Street and those of the company itself and that has even more value in a period where IDC calculated that global sales of smart phones worldwide fell more than 15%.
“We are pleased to report a record quarterly for iPhone despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, and that our installed base of active devices has reached an all-time high”explained CEO Tim Cook. And beyond, say that mobile sales accounted for more than half of all Apple revenue and managed to reduce the loss of revenue that has occurred for the second consecutive quarter.
And it is that the results of the rest of the categories are not so positive, especially in hardware, with a sharp drop in sales of Mac computers (which analysts had already anticipated) and somewhat lower sales of iPad tablets. As for revenue from services, a category that includes iCloud, Apple TV Plus or Apple Music, they were also lower than estimates, but reached 20.910 million dollars and it is a category that Apple wants to boost to avoid the enormous dependency that has from the sale of mobiles.
In financial terms and given the difficult current climate to continue growing, analysts expect the share repurchase of the company as a way to boost the return of investors. Apple delivered as expected: “Given our confidence in Apple’s future and the value we see in our shares, our board has authorized an additional $90 billion for share repurchases. We are also increasing our quarterly dividend for the 11th consecutive year.”announced the financial director Luca Maestri,
No template cutout
Regarding staff, Apple is the only one of the big technology companies that has not cut staff, bucking the industry trend after the pandemic. In an interview with CNBC, Cook assured that layoffs are not on Apple’s immediate horizon. “I see that as a last resort and therefore mass layoffs are not something we’re dealing with right now.”explained the executive.
For the future, Tim Cook is optimistic and expects to overcome the drop in revenue of the last two quarters. Of course supported by the sale of mobile phones. Everything indicates that the market is in a post-pandemic seasonal break and that the figures are going to recover in the last semester and even more so in 2024.
