While the coronavirus pandemic tests the supply chains and systems resilience across the tech industry, Apple seems to have weathered the storm, at least for now. The tech giant announced financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2020 has recorded a revenue of $58.3 billion, a one percent increase from the same quarter a year ago.
Quarterly earnings per diluted share is now $2.55, recording an increase of four percent. While services and wearables have had an increased demand, the company’s product sales have taken a hit.
With a homebound populace looking to entertain itself, revenues from services like Apple Music and Apple TV+ have recorded a rise. The revenue is capped at $13.3 billion, a considerable increase from $11.5 billion. The category of wearables also seems to be doing well owing to the sales of Apple watches and iPods. This also includes home and accessory products such as HomePod which have seen a rise of revenues to $6.3 billion from $5.1 billion.
While other categories are evidently doing well, the device sales have come down. Revenues of Apple’s cornerstone device iPhone reached $28.96 billion, down from $31.1 billion in the corresponding quarter last year. Apple’s production is largely based in China where the coronavirus outbreak began. The company thus anticipated a drop in sales as early and February and had subsequently closed down all its stores in China.
While situation back at its production base seems to be normalising, the company’s home market in the U.S is now leading with the maximum number of cases.
After riding the huge wave out, CEO Tim Cook said “Despite covid-19’s unprecedented global impact, we’re proud to report that Apple grew for the quarter, driven by an all-time record in services and a quarterly-record in wearables”.
The board of directors at Apple has declared a cash dividend of $0.82 per share of the company’s common stock, an increase of six percent. The dividend is payable to the shareholders until May 14th 2020 as of the close of business on May 11th 2020. The board also announced an increase of $50 billion in the existing share repurchase program.
The press-release further contains the company’s future plans considering the global financial boom that the pandemic may cause. Pertaining to the prevailing conditions, the company has laid out its plans relating to the effect of the pandemic on the business, stock prices, results of operations, customer demands and introduction of new products among other things.
