Apple disappoints in revenue: supply chain costs 6 billion

You could see it coming. Apple is suffering from a chip shortage like almost all technology companies, and analysts were somewhat concerned that it might not be able to deliver as many iPhone 13s and other major launches of the year just due to lack of units. But the CEO of the company, Tim Cook, gave him exact figures: 6,000 million dollars in lost sales and extraordinary costs due to lack of materials. A hit that was immediately felt in the stock market, with falls of 4% in the after hours.

The Cupertino technology, despite this, did not disappoint so much in the headlines of its results. He delivered on the profit side: $ 1.24 per share, as expected by analysts. And in the income it fell short, but not in an exaggerated way: 83,360 million dollars, compared to the 84,850 that the market expected.

“We had very strong results despite higher than expected supply constraints, which we estimate at around 6 billion,” Cook told CNBC. “The supply constraints were caused by industry-wide chip shortages, which has been talked about a lot, and COVID-related manufacturing disruptions in Southeast Asia.”

Product revenue was up 29% year-on-year, and outlooks for the future remain good, he explained. Furthermore, these results only cover a few days of iPhone 13 sales, so it is difficult to estimate to what extent your new gadget will be more or less profitable than previous ones. However, the revenue for this category is the ones that disappointed the most: they rose 47% year-on-year, but only reached 38,870 million compared to the 41,510 estimated.

In recent months, Apple has been embroiled in various legal and regulatory problems. On the one hand, the EU has pushed them to use USB-C cables in their systems. And, more importantly, the legal fight against Epic Games over the commissions it charges for the sales of products in the App Store resulted in a partial victory for the company that, however, can be very expensive by allowing the courts to App developers can charge outside the digital store.

In recent days, Apple is defending itself against an attempt at ‘surprise’ by Microsoft. The approach comes after a “spectacular first quarter”, as Bloomberg describes Microsoft’s behavior at the beginning of its new fiscal year. The American company, creator of Windows and Azure, has not surpassed Apple in size on the stock market since the iPhone maker surpassed Saudi Aramco in July 2020.