​Between October and December, Apple posted its first quarterly revenue decline since 2019, with iPhone sales also falling, largely due to a difficult macroeconomic climate and issues in China. Apple’s market capitalization is nearly $2.4 trillion.

Revenues decreased by 5%, to 117.1 billion dollars, the profit, although it decreased by 13%, was not small at all: 30 billion dollars. iPhone accounted for 56% of turnover, and sales of these phones fell by 8%.

Apple no longer discloses numbers related to sales volume, but IDC data indicates that 72 million iPhones were shipped in the final months of 2022, down 15% from 2021.

In addition to the difficult economic climate, Apple cited factors to justify the drop, including production issues in China, as well as a strong dollar that is negatively impacting exports. Apple also predicts a decline in its business in the first quarter of 2023.

Apple’s chief executive said iPhone production, which had fallen due to problems in China related mainly to Covid, was now back to the level the company wanted.

Revenues declined in all geographic regions. Apple accounts for 42% of turnover in the US, 23% in Europe and 20% in China.

Apple is the only tech giant that hasn’t announced thousands of layoffs, and there are several factors, one of which is that Apple hasn’t hired as many people in recent years.

Apple’s headcount grew by only 20% to 164,000 employees, which explains a lot of the current situation: Apple was much more careful when hiring and didn’t pull out more than necessary, so now that they’ve hit a little tougher times, they no need to let go of many employees.

It was important for Apple not only that it was hiring much less aggressively than other companies, but also that the business model was more “resilient” to the crisis, and iPhone sales were doing well, growing almost 10% in the quarter since July through September

Apple tends to be more cautious than other big tech companies, releasing fewer products, taking a little less risk and not spending tens of billions of dollars when it comes to buying other companies.

Sources: AFP, CNBC, New York Times

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