Even before the release of Apple’s quarterly report, analysts were discussing the decline in demand for iPhone in China, and official statistics showed that profits from the sale of smartphones of this brand fell by 10% in total. Apple’s total revenue fell 4%, but the company cheered investors by announcing that it planned to spend $110 billion to buy back its own shares.

CNBC explains that the scale of the buyback is the largest in Apple history, and given that the company’s revenue exceeded market expectations, all this set the stage for Apple shares to rise more than 6% in after-hours trading. Apple, which spent $90 billion on share buybacks last year, announced that this amount will reach $110 billion for the first time this year.

Apple’s total revenue fell 4% year over year to $90.75 billion, but was above the $90.04 billion expected. The launch of the iPhone gave the company 10% less earnings than a year ago – $45.96 billion, despite expectations of $46 billion. Apple generates just over half of its revenue from selling smartphones, and such products are, as before, crucial to the company’s business. Apple’s net profit last quarter decreased by 2% compared to the same period of the previous year, falling to $23.64 billion. Profit margin reached 46.6%, in line with market expectations.

According to CEO Tim Cook (Tim Cook), the first quarter of last year set a high baseline for comparison; iPhone shipments increased by $5 billion in monetary terms in the fall of 2022 due to lagging demand due to hygiene restrictions. . China prevented the company’s contractors from producing smartphones in the required quantities. Excluding this factor, last quarter’s iPhone shipments would have increased compared to the same period last year, as Tim Cook explained, and that’s how the company approaches the results for the period. Direct revenue from iPhone sales last quarter should have remained at last year’s level were it not for lagging demand.

In terms of Mac computers, the company’s revenue increased by 4 percent to $7.45 billion, but still could not reach the 2022 level. MacBook Air laptops based on the M3 processor family, introduced in March this year, were the main driver of sales in the last quarter.

In the “other products” category, which includes Watch and AirPods, the company’s revenue fell 10% year over year to $7.9 billion.

In the tablet segment, Apple’s revenue decreased by 17% to $5.6 billion, while the company has not launched a new iPad model since 2022. Apple’s new tablets are expected to be unveiled at an event on May 7, and Tim Cook has confirmed that the company expects tablet revenue to double not only this month but also at its WWDC 2024 developer conference in June. -digit percentages.

The services aspect performed well last quarter; Apple increased its profile revenue by 14.2% to $23.9 billion. The relevant amount consisted of subscriptions, licensing agreements with search platforms and payment services. The number of paid subscribers to Apple services exceeds 1 billion. According to Apple, in the current quarter, its services group’s revenue will grow at about the same pace as in the previous two quarters.

Analysts’ concerns about decreased demand for Apple products in China were eliminated as the company generated $16.37 billion in revenue in this region, compared to the expected $15.25 billion. But in a year-on-year comparison, Apple’s revenue in China is still falling. 8%, but this is consistent with the general vector. Tim Cook stated that he is generally quite confident in the Chinese market, especially if we are talking about the long term and not the coming weeks. In fact, he said, iPhone sales in China increased last quarter.

In addition to pledging to spend $110 billion on share buybacks, the company increased its dividend from $0.24 to $0.25 per share. The company has not released a quarterly forecast for this period in its purest form, but Tim Cook admitted in an interview with CNBC that he expects revenue to increase by a few percent in the second quarter. According to third-party analysts’ estimates, Apple’s revenue this quarter will increase from $81.8 billion annually to $83.23 billion.