SAN FRANCISCO: The iPhone is back. But Apple is girding for more disruptions in virus-hit China.
Chief Executive Tim Cook told Reuters the company used a wider-than-normal prediction range because of the uncertainty created by the coronavirus.“The situation is emerging, and we’re still gathering lots of data points and monitoring it very closely.”Factories outside Wuhan area will not reopen after the Lunar New Year holiday until Feb 10, Cook said, but Apple built the delayed restart into its wider revenue forecast.
Apple’s share price has more than doubled since Cook warned a year ago that the company was likely to miss financial targets for its biggest sales quarter of its fiscal 2019. Apple has made a push into paid services, rolling out a credit card with Goldman Sachs and subscription gaming and television services last year.
The shift toward services, however, depends on Apple continuing to grow its base of users and sign them up for recurring subscriptions that analysts view as potentially more lucrative than hardware sales. IPhone sales of US$55.96 billion beat analyst estimates of US$51.6 billion and year-before sales of US$52 billion, snapping a yearlong trend of major sales declines for Apple’s biggest-selling hardware product.