Apple’s third fiscal quarter ending in June is typically the company’s slowest, thanks mostly to its pattern of launching new iPhones and Apple Watches in the fall. Q3 this year may be even slower, given China’s quixotic COVID lockdowns that have disrupted operations in some of the factories that produce Apple’s products. So, this time, cyclicality works in Apple’s favor.
Dan Gallagher for The Wall Street Journal:
The company warned investors during its second-quarter earnings call late Thursday that such constraints could clip revenue in the June period by a range of $4 billion to $8 billion. Apple still doesn’t give an actual revenue forecast—a practice that seems to have died with the onset of the pandemic—but analysts reduced their projections for the June quarter by about 3% on average. Wall Street now expects about $83.5 billion in revenue for the quarter, which would be a gain of 2.5% from the same period last year.
It was a downbeat bit of news following an otherwise strong report… The warning for the current quarter was a sharp reminder that the world’s most valuable public company is not immune to adverse forces affecting the world. And Apple is still highly leveraged to China, where the bulk of its products are manufactured. Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Thursday’s earnings call that “almost all of the affected final assembly factories have now restarted.”
MacDailyNews Take: China’s quixotic quest for the unattainable “zero-COVID,” comes at the perfect time for Apple to absorb the impact. Hopefully, the CCP will reevaluate their irrational, unworkable methods sometime soon, or at least before the iPhone 14 family needs to ramp up for mass production.
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Did they say cynicality?
You must be saying hi from heaven? Word is that you passed from COVID. Sorry to hear it. Your spiritual successor, AppallBS, is doing just as bad a job as you did.
For many companies, such production constraints mean lost sales. Windows PCs and Android phones come from multiple vendors, and customers may switch brands based on availability (or lack) of product. For Apple, it’s a delayed sale. If desired Mac or iPhone model is not available, customer is unlikely to buy a Windows PC or Android phone instead. The sale will be delayed to the next quarter.