Apple bolsters mediocre results with largest stock buyback in history
Apple presented its results, and they are very mediocre by the standards of the Cupertino giant. The firm beat earnings and revenue expectations but disappointed in many segments and confirmed a major slowdown in its growth and especially the iPhone, its star product. But the firm offset that with the announcement of the largest share buyback in history, worth $110,000 million, and a smaller-than-expected decline in China – two data that sent the firm’s shares up more than 6% in after-hours trading.
According to the exact numbers, Apple earned $23,636 million, down 2.6% from the previous year. That’s equivalent to $1.53 per share, beating the $1.50 estimate. Revenue was 90,800 million, down 4% year-on-year, but above the market consensus estimate of 90,100. However, The iPhone has the biggest gap, earning just 45,960 million, down 10% from the previous year and below the expected 46,000 million.
The iPad fared worse, down 16.6% year-on-year to 5.560 million, a far cry from the 5.910 million forecast. The best news came from Mac, up 4% to 7.450 million, easily beating the 6.860 million expected. As for the next quarter, Apple didn’t give specific expectations, but pegged growth at “a.” single digit, small,” although that would be better than the current numbers. The firm’s CEO Tim Cook explained that this quarter will be “difficult” because they achieved very important growth last year thanks to the normalization of supply problems caused by Covid. Without these extraordinary sales, it makes sense that iPhone sales would have remained stagnant.not very positive data, but much better than the -10% of the final reports. Their greatest hope is that. sales in China fell only 8%, much better than 14% a decline that analysts had expected. The hope is that demand will not shift en masse towards rival firms such as Huawei and that this is a temporary glitch caused by pressure from the Chinese government. “I’m bullish on China, thinking about the long term more than next week,” Cook said.
A year of ups, downs and doubts
The firm founded by Steve Jobs had several quarters of disappointing results and accumulated losses of 10% for the year, worse than its Magnificent Seven sisters. The firm took a big hit in its latest earnings after announcing that its sales in China fell 13% after Xi Jinping’s government toughened its stance on one of the biggest names in American technology.
The result has been slowing sales, leading analysts to give it its worst buy rating in four years, with just 57% recommending it buy and 11% recommending it sell, a level not seen since 2019. The biggest fear is that it won’t be able to replicate an iPhone-like discovery: the failed Apple Car, canceled just a few months ago, is an example of the difficulty in finding a new goose that lays the golden egg for the firm.