Chip shortages took $6bn bite out of Apple's top line

Apple's lost $6bn in revenue during its last financial quarter of 2021 due to chip shortages and supply constraints, and the impact will be even more severe in the coming months. "We estimate the impact from supply constraints will be larger during the December quarter," said Luca Maestri, chief financial officer, during an …

[Peter D]

ICloth

To mitigate the loss in revenue Apple are introducing the iCloth, a top of the range chamois leather accessory to de-smudge iGadgets for $299.

[Gene Cash]

Re: ICloth

Nah, they're only $19, but they're only compatible with Apple monitors

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MM6F3AM/A/polishing-cloth

[Strahd Ivarius]

Re: ICloth

And they are not compatible with next year products...

[David 132]

Re: ICloth

Well, no, obviously. For those, you’ll need the iCloth SE, which will be 10% smaller, and 5% thinner & lighter. Plus it will be offered in exciting, go-ahead Military Grey colour, rather than this year’s product’s boring, drab Battleship Grey.

[Anonymous Coward]

Analysts

Hmmm, seems to me that when these analyst things get their guess right they take all the credit but when they get it wrong it's always the company's fault. This rule applies to all companies, not just Apple.

And how often are they right (looking at you Gartner)?

Financial analyst: the epitome of a parasitic non job.

Still, it's FRIDAY. 35 Mins to go do the "washin' oil down't clack" thing.

Have a groovy weekend y'all

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Chip shortages?

Apple shouldn't have left the EU.

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps they could see if any chips are washing out of the untreated sewage pipes in the UK - everything else appears to be.....

[DS999]

I don't think the revenue loss matters for Apple

For a Dell or HP it matters because if you can't get what you want from one PC vendor, you might be able to get it from another. Ditto for Android phones (except maybe Samsung as they seem to have some pretty devoted customers who won't buy Android phones from anyone else)

As Apple is the only place to buy a Mac or buy an iPhone, if there are shortages you'll still buy if you're told what you want won't ship until December. It just pushes back your purchase.

The lost revenue last quarter has been pushed into to this quarter. The lost revenue in this quarter will be pushed into next quarter. And so on until the shortages end and that quarter gets higher sales than it otherwise would have due to that catch-up effect.

[Snapper]

Re: I don't think the revenue loss matters for Apple

This quarter is going to be massive for the Mac due to the launch of the new laptops with the new and groovy M1 Pro and Max SoC's. I know at least five Mac design or photography studios that were holding off making major purchases until the new kit was launched.

When you see the specs and results you'd have to have ben seven kinds of stupid to buy the old Intel ones unless you had a specific reason.

[DS999]

Re: I don't think the revenue loss matters for Apple

The new Macs are already pushed out to January for delivery on some configs, and it'll only get worse.

[martinusher]

New iPhone not a "must buy"

Its only a slight dip in revenue, from "enormous" to "not quite enormous" but the investment analysis game usually punishes companies that don't make their target by beating down their stock price (all those robo-traders who see APPL missing their estimated revenue target so 'sell immediately'). But hidden in there is one important detail. Apple released a new phone a month ago to a collective yawn -- nobody seems to be particularly interested in it.

So the news is really "Apple launched a new product and nobody was interested". Its probably not the product but the times we live in -- last year's model still works and people seem to be getting cautious about excessive consumer spending. (Which will be blamed on "supply chain" issues but could just as well be "consumption chain" issues -- if people get out of the habit of buying stuff...could it finally be "The End Of The World As We Know It"?)

[elbisivni]

Re: New iPhone not a "must buy"

The iPhone 13 was made available in mid October - a bit late to contribute, positively or negatively, to apple's results for the last quarter.

[DS999]

Re: New iPhone not a "must buy"

The iPhone 13 was announced in mid September and started shipping before the end of the month. Apple usually manages to ship about 10 million of a new model at the end of Q3.

Last year they didn't because the iPhone 12 was delayed and didn't impact Q3 numbers. That's why the revenue comps were expected to be +50% and the market was disappointed when they were only 40-some percent.

Last year that just pushed those sales back to Q4, so between that and the supply chain issues limiting their ability to ship iPhone 13s as quickly as they would like it seems unlikely they will match last year's Q4 numbers. But to the extent supply chain issues cause them to fall short of last year's Q4 numbers, when they get caught up to demand in either Q1 or Q2 they'll easily blow by last year's numbers.

So expect a lot of silly articles about how iPhone 13 isn't living up to expectations about three months from now when Apple reports a revenue miss, then more silly articles about how iPhone 13 has "proven the naysayers wrong" another quarter or two with the revenue beat!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who speak out of thei backsides

as in the wall st analysts, don't like it that Tim Apple stopped giving guidance when COVID came along.

Their guesstimates are even more guesses than before so they love to err on the high side so that they can slag off Tim Apple when they come in with huge profits but not as ginormous as they'd predicted.

I wish that there was some way that normal investors could make those charlatans (analysts) take a financial hit for their bad advice. Perhaps then... Nah. Who am I kidding but myself eh?

If those numpties had any sense, they'd be taking a long hard look at Intel, AMD and Microsoft. All it would take for Intel and AMD's stock to tank, would be for MS to say that they are supporting ARM on more than their own devices. I am sure that the likes of HP, Dell, ASUS and others have ARM designs all ready to go. They have seen what Apple has done and would want a slice of that pie should MS say the word.

It will be interesting to see what chip Apple put in the rumoured iMac-Pro. That might give us an idea about the next gen Mac-Pro but all of that stuff is way over the heads of those Wall St types.