A pandemic disaster for many technology companies. If it seemed that the boom was never going to end, for those giants of the sector is not like that.
Even the strongest Apple published this Thursday, after the closing of the NYSE, its first quarter with a drop in sales and the sharpest drop in income since 2016. Miners than those obtained in the same period of the previous year, which does not It happened since 2019
In that period, between October and December, the Cupertino company earned US$ 117.2 billion, below the estimates of the US$ analysts 121.4 billion, according to FactSet. The net profit was 30 billion, 13% below previous year, also below projections (31 billion).
The drop in profits is reflected in the results offered by all the main players in the sector, including Google, Objective Alphabet and Amazon, but they continue to grow.
In this sense, the e-commerce giant surprised with results above expectations, with sales of 149.2 billion, a 9% more than the previous year, exceeding expectations.
But its profits were hit by a $2.3 billion audit of its investment in electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian So, in 2022, we lost $ 2.7 billion.
Alphabet, matrix Google or Youtube, could not escape the downtrend. The revenue in 2022 will be from almost $ 60 billion, a 21% below forecast.
The main reason is the damage to its advertising activity, with a drop in 4% income at the end of the year.
“This is the latest sign that crumbling fundamentals and a challenging macroeconomic environment are prompting advertisers to cut spending,” said Investing.com analyst Jesse Cohen.
There are several factors that explain the slowdown.
Apple is undoubtedly the company that exemplifies the third party transmutation in this case.
Tim Cook, its general director, explained that there are three factors that influenced these results.
Besides of very strong dollar, there are the problems of manufacturing in China that have affected the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, as well as the environment general macroeconomic.
“We estimate it would have increased with the iPhone if there were no supply constraints,” Cook told the Wall Street Journal. The macroeconomic situation is more difficult than we thought, from the numbers it is clear that the wind was with us during the quarter,” he added.
“Apple demonstrates that even America's most valuable publicly traded company is not immune to the challenges facing the broader technology industry,” Cohen said.
The company has had trouble keeping up with demand for the last few iPhone models, as China's zero coronavirus policy halted its Zhengzhou factory.
But it managed to reestablish its supply chain and increase production In addition to the fact that the Asian giant raised its sanitary restrictions.
For this reason, analysts predict that Apple will have a best first quarter of 2023, although some continue worried that the Appl companyand the demand for the iPhone and other products.