In the past few months Apple’s financial report as follows, the epidemic has become a haze over different industries, and it has further aggravated the already weak smartphone market.
In this context, Apple released its fiscal second quarter (Q2) financial report, which is Apple’s performance from January to March. During this period, Apple just experienced a large-scale outbreak of the epidemic, and Apple also experienced a shutdown of the upstream supply chain and the closure of offline stores.
Apple expects Q2 revenue will be profitable
In the Q1 financial report released by Apple at the end of January, Apple expects Q2 revenue to reach 63 billion to 67 billion U.S. dollars. However, the impact of the epidemic soon exceeded Apple’s expectations, and Apple also announced in February that it is not expected to achieve revenue targets for this fiscal quarter.
Although this financial report cannot be compared with Q1, which has set several historical highs, in the case of generally low market expectations, Apple has still handed over a financial report that exceeded expectations, but only to allow Apple to achieve growth in adversity.
iPhone is not selling very well, but Apple is getting rid of “iPhone Dependence”
The financial report shows that Apple’s second-quarter net revenue was 58.3 billion US dollars, basically the same as last year’s 58 billion US dollars. Net profit was 11.2 billion US dollars, a decrease of 3% compared with 11.5 billion US dollars in the same period last year, but these two data are higher than analysts’ general expectations for Apple.
If put in the usual, such data is not ideal. Although revenue increased slightly year-on-year last year, it should be understood that Q2 2019 is one of Apple’s worst-performing quarters, with revenue falling by 5% and net profit falling by 16%, and iPhone revenue recorded the largest single-quarter decline.
Although this Q2 Apple has not returned to 2018 levels. However, considering that China’s mobile phone sales in February fell by 56% year-on-year and the spread of the epidemic in the world, such results are already good.
Let’s take a look at the iPhone, Apple’s main business. The revenue from the iPhone is 28.9 billion US dollars, a decrease of 6.7% year-on-year. However, because Apple no longer announces sales, IDC and other agencies have not yet counted iPhone sales for the quarter, and the specific sales of the iPhone are unclear.
iPhone Sales most impact on China
The epidemic dragged down iPhone sales, with the most obvious impact on the Chinese market. Q2 sales in Greater China fell from US$ 10.2 billion last year to US$ 9.4 billion, the largest decline.
Apple once closed all its direct stores in mainland China in February. Apple CEO Tim Cook also said in the earnings conference call that demand in the Chinese market dropped sharply in February and did not fully recover until next year.
“This is a very special quarter. I have never encountered it in the past, and I hope I will never encounter it again.”
But the bad news is that
The iPhone still contributes half of Apple’s revenue, Q2’s iPhone’s share of revenue has fallen to 49.6%, the second time that Q3 iPhone has achieved less than 50% of revenue last year.
But the good news in the bad news is that Apple’s revenue has continued to grow. It also means that Apple is moving away from “iPhone dependency” and that the new growth engine is already accelerating.
Under such circumstances, Apple’s revenue continues to grow. This also means that Apple is gradually getting rid of the “iPhone Dependence Disorder” and the new growth engine has begun to accelerate.
iPad and MacBook revenues fell again, and they will hit back next quarter
Although Apple released the new iPad Pro and MacBook Air in late March, most of the revenue from these two products will only be reflected in the next quarter’s financial report. The performance of the iPad and Mac in this quarter is still weak.
Revenue from the iPad is $4.3 billion, and revenue from the Mac is $5.3 billion. Both have dropped to varying degrees compared to the same period last year. These two businesses have become Apple’s two least profitable product lines.
But Apple is optimistic about iPad and Mac sales in the next quarter. The sudden outbreak was the arsenic of smartphones, but the honey of tablets and notebooks. The surge in demand for teleworking and online education has led to a surge in tablet and notebook sales.
According to a report by market research agency NPD, in the first two weeks of March, sales of notebooks sold to companies in the United States also increased by 50%. These notebooks are mainly prepared by companies for employees who work from home.
Cook said that users have gradually adapted to the reality that this kind of home isolation may last for some time, and began to configure some home office equipment. At the same time, the trend of remote office and learning will continue to develop after the epidemic, which will drive the sales of iPad and Mac.
Two carriages that pull Apple to accelerate
AirPods
It can be seen that whether it is an iPhone, or iPad and Mac, Q2’s revenue is declining. The biggest contributors to Apple’s revenue growth are the wearable device and service businesses.
The sales of wearable devices, home products, and accessories represented by the AirPods series reached 6.28 billion US dollars, an increase of 22.5% year-on-year. Tech Guru’s predicted that the AirPods series shipments will be about 80-90 million units in 2020, and there is also news that the new AirPods may be released next month.
App and Services
As for Apple’s service business, which started a large force last year, it reached a record high with a revenue of 13.3 billion US dollars. Cook said that Apple has 515 million App and service subscribers, an increase of 125 million from last year, and it is expected to exceed 600 million by the end of this year.
Cook specifically mentioned Apple TV+’s streaming business, although Apple’s investment in homemade content is not as good as Netflix. However, with the strategy of buying Apple devices for 1 year of free Apple TV+, a large number of users are still harvested.
Chief Financial Officer CFO Luca Maestri said at the earnings report that the number of Apple paying users maintained double-digit growth. And Apple’s mature software and hardware ecosystem is Apple’s biggest advantage in the service business. After all, more than 1.5 billion active devices installed can become the entrance to Apple’s services
Although the current revenue of the service business is less than half of the iPhone, it has become one of Apple’s most important growth engines. It is hitting new highs almost every quarter, and it may be expected to replace the iPhone as a new revenue pillar in time.
5G iPhone can be delayed, maybe Apple ‘can’t afford it’
Unlike the previous financial report, this time Apple did not give the financial report expectations for the next quarter. Cook said that it is currently difficult to predict the situation in the next two months, it is difficult to make a judgment.
“The question is when will the store reopen, when will the in-situ asylum order be canceled, and when will it be possible to return to work and attract consumers? We did not pretend to be predictable but were very straightforward and we could not predict the future.”
The biggest impact on Apple is that
This year’s new iPhone flagship may be delayed.
2020 was originally a crucial year for Apple to launch a 5G iPhone. If last year’s iPhone 11 didn’t go to 5G, Apple believed that the market and technology were not mature enough. If Apple didn’t launch a 5G phone this year, it might be one step behind the wave of 5G replacements.
Except for Apple, mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have launched 5G mobile phones covering multiple price points. Although the market share of 5G mobile phones is not high, it is growing rapidly. According to data from the China Academy of Information Technology, the penetration rate of 5G in December 2019 was only 15%, but this figure has risen to 37% in February this year.
In the past two months, there has been a lot of news that the iPhone 12 may be delayed. The main basis for these judgments is that Apple’s global supply chain has been affected by the epidemic.
What Cook Says on iPhone 12
At Apple’s financial report today, when Cook was asked whether 5G mobile phones would encounter supply chain disruptions. Cook did not give a clear reply, only saying that he would not comment on future products, and emphasized that Apple’s supply chain can recover quickly from the epidemic.
However, some Apple parts suppliers revealed that they have received notice to postpone the mass production plan for about two to three months. Some sources even said that in the worst case, the release of the 5G iPhone may be delayed until 2021.
“The launch of the new iPhone is likely to be delayed.”
