Apple Profit Tops Wall Street Goals, even when iPhone, China’s Sales Come Short

On By Littum

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) -Apple Beat Wall Street’s quarterly surplus estimates on Thursday, but the iPhone sales and China revenue for the Holiday Quarter were weak due to stiff Chinese competition and a slow rollout of artificial intelligence features.

The company’s total sales and profits were increased by stronger than expected sales of iPads and Macs, where new chips helped persuade customers to upgrade.

The lack of AI Sales contributed to iPhone sales that dropped slightly to $ 69.14 billion compared to the $ 71.03 billion that analysts expected, according to LSEG data. Sales of larger China fell to $ 18.51 billion compared to $ 20.82 billion the year before and below the $ 21.33 billion as a visible alpha survey of five expected analysts.

Shares dipped 0.25% in minced trade by the market.

Total sales of $ 124.30 billion for the first quarter of the fiscal policy ended on December 28 empty past Wall Street’s target of $ 124.12 billion, according to LSEG, while earnings per year. A share of $ 2.40 comfortably beat the consensus target of $ 2.35.

The iPhone -Maker has placed AI as a set of new options and features such as preparation of E emails and transcripting phone calls, but the company is rolling the features over time and has not yet secured a local partner in China to release them.

In an interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that AI features, called Apple Intelligence, run the sale of the company’s new devices.

“We saw that in markets where we’ve rolled out Apple Intelligence, the year-over year’s performance on the iPhone 16 family was stronger than those where Apple Intelligence wasn’t available,” Cook said.

While Cook said Apple Intelligence is coming to new languages ​​such as French and German in April, he said there is no timeline for when it will be available in China.

“We continue to work with the regulators and will release it as soon as we can,” Cook said.

Cook told Reuters that about half of Apple’s 11% decrease in China revenue could be attributed to changes in how much stock the company’s dealers had.

“While a clearing of the inventory through discounts in China may have weighed in the December quarter, it sets up Apple well for the rest of the year, especially if it is able to roll out Apple Intelligence in China,” said Gil Luria, There administers the director at Da Davidson.

Mac sales take advantage of a new series Mac Minis, iMacs and MacBook Pros with a new M4 chip. Apple Intelligence features are more widely available on Apple’s Macs and iPads because their larger size means they have more powerful chips.