Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Apple Inc is overcoming the costly global shortage in computer chips, posting record sales over the holiday quarter, beating profit estimates and forecasting that its shortfall is narrowing.
The iPhone maker, which is world's largest company by market capitalization, has handled supply-chain challenges such as factory shutdowns and shipping delays brought on by the pandemic better than any of its top peers, analysts said. Apple shares rose about 5% in after-hours trading, erasing half their losses on the year.
More people wanted iPhones, iPads and other gadgets over the holiday quarter than Apple had to sell, costing the company over US$6 billion in sales, or in line with what it feared. Yet, Apple, which is many part suppliers' biggest client, used its buying power to squeeze those vendors to ship enough gadgets to power record sales in its iPhones, Mac and wearables and accessories segments. Apple executives said chip shortages are mostly affecting older models of its products and particularly slowed iPad sales.
"They've navigated the supply chain better than everybody, and it's showing in the results," said Ryan Reith, who studies the smartphone market for industry tracker IDC.
The four best-selling phones in urban China were all iPhone models, Apple said, as competitors struggled to manufacture rival offerings. It was the top-selling vendor in China for the first time in six years, research firm Counterpoint Research reported on Wednesday.
Apple's growing sales of services such as music, TV and fitness subscriptions also are helping soften the blow of low device supply. The company said it now has 785 million paying subscribers across its at least seven subscription offerings, up by 40 million from last quarter and soothing investors concerned about slowing growth at rivals such as Netflix Inc.
Even better, Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Reuters that easing chip shortages should mean less than $6 billion in lost revenue in the current quarter. But he declined to estimate further in the future.
"The level of constraint will depend a lot on other companies, what will be the demand for chips from other companies and other industries," he said.
The iPhone 13, which started shipping days before the quarter began, led to worldwide phone sales revenue for Apple of $71.6 billion, a 9% increase from the 2020 holiday season that handily beat Wall Street targets, according to Refinitiv data. Maestri attributed the sales bump to a record number of upgrades from older iPhones and double-digit growth in people switching from rivals.
Apple's overall fiscal first-quarter revenue was $123.9 billion, 11% up from last year and higher than analysts' average estimate of $118.7 billion. Profit was $34.6 billion, or $2.10 per share, compared with analysts' expectations of $31 billion and $1.89 per share.
Maestri warned though that revenue growth will slow in the current quarter compared with the December quarter primarily due to less favorable foreign exchange rates and the different launch dates of products.
Sales for iPads fell 14% to $7.25 billion compared with analyst estimates of $8.2 billion, seeming to confirm industry predictions that the tablets would have low priority for any scarce parts. The other major segments all beat Wall Street estimates.
Revenue from Mac computers rose 25% to $10.9 billion, and Apple said the last six quarters have been its best for Mac sales.
Sales for wearables and accessories, including the company's new AirTag tracking device, rose 13% to $14.7 billion. Services revenue rose 24% to $19.5 billion.
The pandemic has accelerated adoption of digital tools for communication, learning and entertainment, powering Apple to blowout sales over the last two years.
But investors this year have been shifting funds toward safer assets and away from tech stocks such as Apple that have soared during the pandemic with people spending time more time online. Wall Street has questioned how long it will take Apple to deliver its next big product, such as an augmented reality (AR) headset for the metaverse.
"We see a lot of potential in this space and are investing accordingly," Chief Executive Tim Cook told investors on Thursday.
Apple also is facing antitrust pressure in the United States and Europe that could lead to new regulations that cut into its services revenue.
Late last month, the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) ordered Apple to make changes for apps on offer in the Apple App Store in the Netherlands by Jan. 15 or face fines, after it found that the U.S. company had abused its market dominance by requiring dating app developers to exclusively use Apple's in-app payment system.
Still, Apple is trading at 27 times expected earnings over the next 12 months. While down from as much as 35 a year ago, it remains above the company's five-year average of 20 times expected earnings, according to Refinitiv.
(Reporting by Danielle Kaye in New York, Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif., and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Kenneth Li, Peter Henderson and Lisa Shumaker)
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.