Apple’s iPhone Sales Target Billions Below Wall Street Expectations as China Business Suffers

Apple’s iPhone Sales Target Billions Below Wall Street Expectations as China Business Suffers: Due to difficulties in its China business, Apple on Thursday predicted a decline in iPhone sales and set its total revenue target at $6 billion, or around Rs. 49,714 crore, below Wall Street estimates.

Due to this, Apple shares fell 3% in after-hours trading despite the company’s total fiscal first-quarter revenue and earnings exceeding analysts’ projections and growing thanks to the rise of the iPhone.

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The findings supported some analysts’ worries that the company’s flagship product is losing ground in the important Asian market to foldable phones and Huawei phones with chips built in China.

“In an interview with Reuters, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that China remains the most competitive smartphone market globally. When taking into consideration currency exchange rates, he claimed that iPhone sales there decreased by “mid-single digits” in the December quarter.

Apple’s iPhone Sales:

“In China, Apple is facing more competitive challenges not only because of Huawei but also because of foldables, which is a very popular and fast-growing segment in China – and as we all know, Apple does not have a foldable device – yet,” Nabila Popal, an analyst at IDC, said.

Based on LSEG data, Apple reported sales in China for the December quarter of $20.82 billion, or approximately Rs. 1,72,509 crore, missing analyst projections of $23.53 billion, or approximately Rs. 1,94,951 crore.

According to Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri, during a conference call with investors, the company’s revenue for the current quarter will be at least $5 billion (about Rs. 41,426 crores) less than it was a year ago when it sold iPhones quickly to refill stockpiles depleted by COVID-related production shutdowns.

According to Maestri’s remarks, revenue for the fiscal second quarter ending in March is expected to be approximately $90 billion (roughly Rs. 7,45,681 crore), with iPhone sales estimated to be approximately $46 billion (nearly Rs. 3,81,126 crore). Wall Street anticipated revenue of about $96 billion, or approximately Rs. 7,95,393 crore, and iPhone sales of $50 billion, or approximately Rs. 4,14,281 crore. In the 2023 quarter, they were $51 billion, or approximately Rs. 4,22,568 crore.

Apple’s iPhone Sales Target Billions:

That would make it the worst iPhone sales quarter for the company’s fiscal second quarter since widespread COVID lockdowns in March 2020.

According to Ben Bajarin, CEO of research firm Creative Strategies, “China would be the drag, and it has everything to do with their seasonality, and the elongated replacement cycle.”

“Regardless of what happens, (a drop in) year-over-year iPhone sales would be more of a concern than a quarter.”

Apple reported revenue of $119.58 billion and profit of $2.18 per share for its fiscal first quarter, which concluded on December 30. These figures were higher than expert projections of $117.91 billion and $2.10 per share.

iPhone sales for the quarter totaled $69.70 billion, up 6% from the expert forecast of $67.82 billion. This was mostly due to the success of the company’s iPhone 15 portfolio, which includes handsets that can record three-dimensional video for the Vision Pro headset announced this week. Apple now has 2.2 billion installed devices worldwide, up from 2 billion the previous year.

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