Apple has a bad second quarter as iPhone, iPad sales fall

Apple posted quarterly revenue of $50.6 billion and quarterly net income of $10.5 billion, compared to $58 billion and $13.6 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin too fell to 39.4 per cent from 40.8 percent in the year-ago quarter.

International sales accounted for 67 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Incidentally, Asia, excluding Japan and Greater China, accounted for the biggest fall in revenue, a sequential decline of -42 percent. None of the markets recorded growth in revenue, and among products only service showed a positive trend.

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Apple’s iPhone, for instance, recorded a drop in sales of -36 percent compared to the quarter before and a fall of 16 percent in comparison to 2015. The year over year fall in iPad units was worse at -19 percent.

Apple also announced that its Board of Directors has authorised an increase of $50 billion to the Company’s program to return capital to shareholders. Under the expanded program, Apple plans to spend a cumulative total of $250 billion of cash by the end of March 2018.

“We generated strong operating cash flow of $11.6 billion and returned $10 billion to shareholders through our capital return program during the March quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “Thanks to the strength of our business results, we are happy to be announcing today a further increase of the program to $250 billion.”

From the inception of its capital return program in August 2012 through March 2016, Apple has returned over $163 billion to shareholders, including $117 billion in share repurchases. The company plans to continue to access the domestic and international debt markets to assist in funding the programme.

Apple has projected a revenue between $41 billion and $43 billion along with a gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38 percent for the next quarter.