Today Apple stock fell over 3% in extended trading after executives signaled the holiday forecast for the company may not return to growth. Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat analyst expectations for sales and earnings per share. Apple revealed that overall sales fell for the fourth quarter in a row. Every hardware business outside of the iPhone declined year over year, with big drops in the iPad and Mac segments.
Apple earnings
Here’s how Apple did, versus LSEG consensus expectations:
- Apple earning per share: $1.46 per share vs. $1.39 per share expected
- Apple revenue: $89.5 billion vs. $89.28 billion expected
- iPhone revenue: $43.81 billion vs. $43.81 billion expected
- Mac revenue: $7.61 billion vs. $8.63 billion expected
- iPad revenue: $6.44 billion vs. $6.07 billion expected
- Gross margin:2% vs. 44.5% expected
Expected Apple revenue
The company didn’t give formal guidance, but finance chief Luca Maestri said expected Apple revenue for December quarter to “be similar to” last year’s revenue. However, as per the company, Apple said that the December quarter this year will have one fewer week.
Analysts were looking for $122.98 billion in Apple revenue for the December quarter, which would be a return to year-over-year growth of about 5% in Apple’s most important quarter.
Net income was $22.96 billion, or $1.46 per Apple stock, versus $20.72 billion, or $1.29 per Apple stock, during the year-earlier period. The tech giant, Apples sales was reported at $383.29 billion for the full fiscal year, down about 3% from the prior year. Apple’s quarterly revenue declined less than 1% in the September quarter.
Apple sales below expectations
The company’s iPhone sales were in line with Wall Street expectations and increased more than 2% from last year. It was the only hardware line for Apple to show growth in the quarter, and the period only included about a week of iPhone 15 sales.
Apple’s revenue for both Mac and iPad businesses declined during the quarter. Maestri had warned on a call with analysts after third-quarter results that iPad and Mac sales would fall by double-digit percentages.
Mac sales came in below Wall Street expectations, falling nearly 34% year over year.
Apple’s revenue from iPads was also down, falling 10% from the same period last year. Apple did not announce new products ahead of the holiday season this year.
Apple’s services business was a bright spot. Apple recorded $22.31 billion in services revenue, outpacing analyst expectations and increasing more 16% from a year earlier.
Apple’s wearables business unit includes headphones like the AirPods as well as Apple Watch sales. It, too, shrank year over year, dropping over 3%.
Apple’s China business
Apple’s business in Greater China, its third largest market, is under the microscope as investors worry about increased competition from Huawei. Greater China sales were basically flat year over year. Apple reported $15.08 billion from the region, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Apple stock dividend
The company continues to have a huge amount of cash and cash-like securities on hand, even as it strives to offset its cash pile with debt. Apple said it had $162.1 billion in cash on hand on Thursday.
Apple said it would pay a dividend of 24 cents per stock this month and said the company had spent $25 billion during the quarter on stock repurchases and dividends.
