telecommunications
Apple with record Christmas quarter despite chip shortage
Despite the global chip shortage, Apple once again achieved record numbers last Christmas. Photo: Stefan Jaitner/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
More than $34 billion quarterly profit, around $124 billion in sales: Apple remains an unprecedented money machine. And this despite the fact that chip bottlenecks have slowed sales recently.
Despite the global chip shortage, Apple once again achieved record numbers last Christmas. The quarterly profit reached 34.6 billion dollars (31 billion euros). That was a good fifth more than a year earlier.
Sales rose by around eleven percent to 123.9 billion dollars (111.2 billion euros), also a record. The group could have sold even more without the chip bottlenecks: Apple estimates that they pushed sales by more than six billion dollars.
The iPhone was once again the growth driver. Sales of Apple’s smartphone rose to $71.6 billion year-on-year, Apple announced after the US stock market closed on Thursday. That was an increase of nine percent year-on-year – significantly higher than analysts had expected.
Rivals ousted from top spot
According to calculations by the analysis company IDC, Apple, as so often in the Christmas quarter, pushed Samsung out of the top spot in the smartphone business. With around 85 million iPhones sold, Apple had a market share of 23.4 percent. The market researchers’ figures suggest that the group must have sold more expensive iPhone models than in the previous year. Because IDC calculated a decline of almost three percent in the number of units. There are no more sales figures from Apple itself.
There was also significant growth and record sales for Mac computers, the division with the Apple Watch and accessories, and in the subscription business. The iPad business shrank by 15 percent. CFO Luca Maestri attributed this to the chip shortage. Demand was strong – and around every second iPad buyer bought their first Apple tablet with it.
Less headwind expected
For the current quarter, Apple expects a little less headwind from the chip bottlenecks. Apple’s supply problems were mainly limited to semiconductor products from older production processes, as CEO Tim Cook said.
Such chips are used in power supplies, for example. They quickly became a scarce commodity after demand for computers skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic. Because the chip industry had reduced capacities for older processes over the years. The situation remains a challenge, Cook emphasized. However, thanks to its well-organized supply chains, Apple has so far managed to get through the bottlenecks better than many of its competitors.
This is also reflected in the Mac computer business, which has been posting record sales quarter after quarter. In the past quarter, revenues jumped 25 percent to $10.85 billion. The majority of sales are now accounted for by new models with Apple’s own processors instead of Intel chips, it said. The group is switching to the chip architecture of its iPhones for Macs, promising benefits in terms of performance and efficiency.
Lots of new customers
The division, in which various devices such as the Apple Watch computer clock, AirPods earphones and HomePod speakers are bundled, increased sales by 13 percent to $14.7 billion. Apple does not give sales figures for individual categories. Chief Financial Officer Maestri emphasized that for more than two-thirds of watch buyers in the past quarter, it was their first Apple watch.
A total of 1.8 billion Apple devices are currently in use by users.
The services area with subscription offers and the app business grew by 24 percent to 19.5 billion dollars. Across all services such as music and video streaming or online storage, Apple has 785 million active subscriptions – 165 million more than a year earlier.
The Christmas quarter with fresh iPhone models is traditionally the strongest of the year for the group. But the figures exceeded the analysts’ growth expectations. The stock rose by around five percent in after-hours trading at times – although Apple promised slower growth for the current quarter. One of the reasons for this is that a year ago, a larger part of the iPhone demand than usual was only served at the beginning of 2021, explained Maestri.
After the record quarter, the company’s reserves were $203 billion despite distributions to shareholders. This is offset by debts of 123 billion dollars.