Quarterly report: Apple experiences drop in profits and slump in China

Apple’s earnings fell 7.4 percent to $ 12.7 billion (73 cents per share). The company announced on October 29, 2020 after close of trading on the stock exchange in New York known . The result exceeded the analysts’ expectations of 71 cents per share. Revenue increased 1 percent to $ 64.7 billion.

Wall Street analysts had expected sales to decline on average for the period. Sales in the Greater China (China and Taiwan) economic sector fell 28.6 percent to $ 7.9 billion. Apple shares fell over 4 percent in extended trading.

IPhone sales were $ 26.4 billion, down 20 percent from $ 33.4 billion in the same period last year. The launch of the iPhone 12 had been postponed until October 13th, a few weeks later than usual, which means that the results for the period do not include iPhone sales on the opening weekend. “Outside the iPhone segment, the company grew by 25 percent year-on-year,” said CFO Luca Maestri of the Financial Times .

In an interview on CNBC, CEO Tim Cook attributed the decline in net sales in Greater China to the fact that “a larger percentage of sales in China consist of new iPhones” and Apple is “confident” that the market will grow again in the first quarter.

The revenue with services rose by 16.3 percent to 14.5 billion US dollars, the analysts had estimated 14 billion US dollars. Cook told Reuters news agency that Apple One, a package of the group’s paid services, would be released on Friday. Apple has 585 million paying subscribers on its platforms, up from 550 million in the previous quarter, and is closer to the target of 600 million subscribers that the company had set for the end of calendar year 2020.