On May 3rd, Apple announced its Q2 2024 (cessation of Q1 March 30th, 2024) revenue statement. According to the complaint, Apple’s revenue for the quarter was $90.75 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 4%; Net profit was $23.636 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2%.
Among them, iPhone sales amounted to $45.96 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 10%, but still accounted for half of Apple’s sales; IPad sales decreased by 16.7% to $5.56 billion; Not wearing equipment, home furnishings, and accessories cost 7.91 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decline; Mac’s revenue reached 7.45 billion yuan, exceeding expectations of 6.79 billion US dollars.
Service expenses, including Apple Music, TV+streaming platform, iCloud subscription, and App Store operations, increased by 14.2% year-on-year in the second quarter to $23.87 billion, reaching a new high for five consecutive quarters. This is also Apple’s current highest profit margin business, accounting for 20% of its total revenue.
Looking at different regions, among the top five shopping malls of Apple Global, only European shopping malls maintained year-on-year growth. Among them, the Greater China region spent $16.37 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 8.1%, which is not related to the weak sales of the iPhone 15 series.
According to data released by third-party shopping mall research firm Counterpoint, Apple’s sales in Chinese shopping malls declined by 19% in the first quarter, and its market share fell from first to third, the lowest level since 2020. An important backdrop is that Apple’s main rival in high-end shopping malls, Huawei, is seeing an increase in smartphone sales, with a year-on-year increase of no more than 70%.
However, Apple’s performance in the Greater China region last season has exceeded analyst expectations. Wall Street had previously estimated that Apple’s performance in Greater China for the quarter would decline by no more than double digits.
Despite being provoked by Chinese shopping malls, Apple CEO Cook still shows no faith in Chinese shopping malls. At the post financial report Deloitte meeting, he expressed that China is the most fiercely competitive shopping mall for global cooperation, but in the exceptionally fierce cooperation, the sales of iPhones in mainland China still increased in the previous quarter.
“I still have great hopes for the future growth of Chinese shopping malls. We are not focusing on the growth of the next one or two weeks, but rather placing more emphasis on long-term growth.” Cook also exaggerated that according to Kantar’s data, the two most out of stock smartphones in urban areas of China this quarter were the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
In March of this year, Cook left China again after a year and joined the closing ceremony of Shanghai’s eighth Apple private retail store and China’s highest specification Apple flagship store. He also met with several important supplier leaders at the same time, including BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu, LanSi Technology Chairman Zhou Qunfei, and ChangLi Precision General Manager Chen Xiaoshuo.
Apple estimates that sales in the second quarter of this year will increase by a low single digit percentage, and its iPad and office operations are expected to increase at a double-digit rate, but there is no speculation about the success of the iPhone.
At the same time as the financial report was released, Apple’s board of directors also agreed to the largest ever stock buyback plan, which will buy an additional $110 billion in stocks. Perhaps due to this news, Apple’s stock price surged by about 7% after trading on Thursday.
