Apple is gearing up for its Q2 earnings report on Thursday, navigating tariff and supply chain hurdles. Tariffs are a key focus for investors, with China, the primary iPhone manufacturing hub, hit by a 145% levy. Apple Intelligence, as well, remains a priority for investors, likely much more important than tariff concerns longterm.
Jordan Hart for Business Insider:
Thursday afternoon will be Apple’s moment to speak for itself on the fate of its products and manufacturing. Tariffs, of course, will be the vocabulary word for this earnings season, and the company is facing steep rates if things continue how they are.
Jacob Bourne, analyst at BI sister company EMARKETER, said there are three key tariff-related issues for this earnings call: “Apple’s ability to absorb, avoid, or pass on potential price increases, the financial impact of tariffs, and the timeline for effective supply chain diversification.”
The fourth question that Apple will likely need to answer for investors isn’t tariff-related, but rather around the progress of Apple Intelligence going into Q2. “The tariff brouhaha may have distracted many Apple watchers from the AI conversation, but this intrinsic factor remains vital to Apple’s success,” [Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester] said.
Chatterjee said investors will, once again, ask when “the promise of an Apple Intelligence-powered upgrade super cycle come to fruition.”
MacDailyNews Take: Expect Apple CEO Tim Cook to give little or no meaningful insight on tariffs (“we continue to monitor the situation”) and not much more on Apple Intelligence as Cook is currently in the midst of rearranging the deck chairs on that issue as he tries to clean up the mess from yet another of his bad high-profile hires (John Giannandrea).
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1) The term” Investors” is often misused, as it is here. The correct term is “traders” – who influence the price of stock by their trading (buying & selling). Investors don’t “trade,” they “invest” (e.g., for the long-haul), and only when they buy or sell stock do they impact the price.
2) Steve Jobs was a talented and amazing inventor. But for the bulk of his tenure (both of them) his Apple struggled – the underdog of the industry – until Tim Cook arrived. Today – under Tim Cook – Apple is the largest, most profitable company in the history of the planet. (Take a look at the 10-year chart of Apple’s stock prices.) Frankly, it is unreasonable to assume this was Steve Jobs doing. I agree that we desperately need another Steve Jobs, but we ALSO need another Tim Cook in there. And the chance of finding them both in a single person is nil.
So well said, “Steve Carl!” Its true that Tim Cook is not a product visionary. He has never represented himself as much. But he is the best CEO I know of over the last many years, by a wide margin. You cannot discount Apple’s success before and while he has been CEO. Easy to skim over his accomplishments over many years until you realize no one else could have guided the ship as well as he has. It’s ignorant or worse, childish, to say otherwise.
And Apple would not be the first company to have a brilliant visionary founder that lost said visionary, and never found another one. Lightening only strikes so often. Is that you, Andy Gove, wishing you were still here to help Intel?