As of: 10/29/2021 8:35 a.m.
Chip shortages and pandemic-related production downtimes are now also burdening Apple – and costing the company billions. During the Christmas business the situation could worsen again, warns CEO Cook.
The mood at the technology group Apple is subdued – although sales and profits have risen sharply and he was able to increase iPhone sales significantly. The bottlenecks in the supply chains and Corona outages in production would have pushed sales in the fourth quarter by around six billion dollars, said CEO Tim Cook.
In the current quarter, the negative effect will be even greater, warned CFO Luca Maestri in a conference call with analysts. Cook also said the situation would worsen again in the Christmas season. The chip crisis is now affecting most Apple products. The current Christmas quarter with the new iPhone is traditionally the most lucrative for Apple.
Weak prospects
A look at the figures for the fourth quarter just ended shows that business is still doing brilliantly and that Apple is achieving growth figures that other corporations do not dare to dream of: sales climbed by 29 percent to 83, thanks in part to surging demand in China , $ 4 billion. The iPhone 12 models in particular were in demand – as were Mac computers and iPads, as more and more people are permanently working from home.
According to calculations by the analysis company Canalys, Apple increased iPhone sales by a total of 14 percent to 49.2 million devices. This brought the group back to second place in the smartphone market. The bottom line was that the Californian company earned $ 20.6 billion – an increase of 62 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Lack of chips remains the main problem
However, analysts had expected even better numbers and did not expect that the problems would have such a strong impact. In addition, the warnings from Cook and Maestri are fueling fears that Apple could also disappoint the high expectations in the coming quarter. This can be seen in the stock market reaction: The share sank in after-hours trading by around five percent and is a burden on the entire stock market.
Apple is also not immune to the logistics problems that plague many companies: “We are seeing a significant increase in transport costs,” said Cook. But the CEO is also trying to appease: The production losses due to the corona lockdown have now largely been resolved. The headwind is now almost exclusively due to the shortage of chips. Basically, “pretty much all of our products are affected,” admitted Cook.