Apple Warns of Sluggish Holiday Quarter After China Slowdown

The company has been trying to pull out of its longest sales slowdown in decades. It just reported its fourth straight revenue decline, matching a streak it suffered in 2001, as the company struggles with a sluggish computer market and shaky demand in China.

Revenue fell to $89.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 30. That compared with an average Wall Street estimate of $89.4 billion. Apple didn’t provide formal guidance for the current quarter, sticking with a policy it adopted during the pandemic.

The results suggest that Apple is facing a bigger deceleration in China than feared. The government there has imposed bans on US technology in some workplaces, and a new phone from Huawei Technologies Co. is providing fresh competition. Revenue from that region amounted to $15.1 billion last quarter, down slightly from a year earlier and well short of the $17 billion analysts had predicted.

Cook also said the company was investing “quite a bit” in generative artificial intelligence.
The iPhone accounts for roughly half of Apple’s sales, so the launch of a new model is closely watched by investors. With the iPhone 15, the company redesigned the high-end versions — giving them titanium cases — and added features such as a more powerful zoom camera lens. The hope was to entice smartphone shoppers who had been holding onto their old models for longer these days.

The personal computer market also is poised for a resurgence, but Apple didn’t debut any new models during the quarter. It did unveil new MacBook Pros, iMacs and M3 processors earlier this week, but sales of those machines won’t show up in Apple results until the quarter ending in December.