Despite the constraints owing to a global microchip supply shortage, Apple managed to generate high revenue records, especially during the Christmas shopping season. Contrasting the forecasts, sales boosted up 11 percent to a value of $123.9 billion during the holidays and shares rose more than 4 percent as the report reveals the firm’s continuing pandemic boom.
Apple has seen purchases skyrocket during the pandemic as people spend more time online. The firm’s market value briefly hit the $3tn milestone in early January though its share price has slipped more recently amid weeks of market turmoil.
Sales boom
Executives had warned last year that the global shortage of microchips might limit its sales, but the firm’s quarterly update to investors on Thursday showed it brushing past those concerns.
Mac sales were up 12%, while iPhone sales jumped 9%.
With few rival phones debuting in the holiday shopping season, the iPhone 13, which started shipping days before the quarter began, led to worldwide phone sales revenue for Apple of $71.6bn.
Revenue from the company’s services unit – which includes Apple Pay, the App Store, and its TV streaming service – was up more than 23%.
The iPad, which executives said was particularly affected by the supply issues, was the one product that showed weakness, with sales slipping 14%.
Demand in China, where sales rose 20%, propelled the firm’s growth in the quarter.
Apple said profits were $34.6bn, up 20%.
The company, which has more than 1.8 billion active devices in the market, has been able to put pressure on suppliers and manufacturers to produce big quantities of iPhones and other devices despite shortages brought on by the pandemic and most recently the Omicron variant.
“They’ve navigated the supply chain better than everybody, and it’s showing in the results,” said Ryan Reith, who studies the smartphone market for industry tracker IDC.
The CFO, Luca Maestri, said that the supply crunch issues are temporary and will ease out by the end of the current quarter, in March. Therefore, he further continues to state that it’s wise for the firm to focus on the short term as it will be hard to predict the demand for chips from other industries and businesses as the level of the constraint depends a lot on other organizations.
