Apple took a $6 billion hit on revenue due to a global chip crisis and manufacturing disruption caused by Covid-19.
This is contained in its fiscal Q4 2021 (25 June to 25 September) report.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly warned that the supply constraints will cost the company even more in its next quarter.
On an earnings call, Tim Cook cited greater than expected supply constraints as the factor behind the revenue hit, with Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac all affected.
He cited chip shortages and Covid-19 disruptions in southeast Asia as the major issue, but added the latter had improved materially across October.
The company predicted the impact of supply constraints to be greater in its fiscal Q1 2022 (26 September to 25 December), traditionally Apple’s most lucrative period.
In fiscal Q4 2021, net income rose 62 per cent year-on-year to $20.5 billion, boosted by higher-margin services growth which CFO Luca Maestri noted on the call generated revenue of $18.2 billion compared with $14.5 billion in the comparable quarter of fiscal 2020 on “all-time records” across cloud, App Store and payment services.
Maestri noted Apple ended the quarter with 745 million paying subscribers.
Overall revenue grew 29 per cent to $83.4 billion.
Product sales of $65 billion were up from $50.1 billion, with Cook pointing to a line of its “most powerful products ever”.
The iPhone accounted for the largest bulk of its revenue, with smartphone sales up 47 per cent to $38.9 billion. Mac brought in $9.2 billion, up 1.6 per cent and iPad sales increased 21.4 per cent to $8.3 billion.
Wearable sales rose 11.5 per cent to $8.8 billion.
