Apple CEO Tim Cook Friday said he was “very bullish on India” where the company has done “fairly well through Covid”. He was speaking after announcing the first quarter results of the company which showed an uncharacteristic year-on-year dip, down 5 per cent from last year to $117.2 billion.
Cook attributed the poor numbers to three factors — “foreign exchange headwinds”, Covid-19 related challenges and the “challenging macroeconomic environment”. He said Apple would have grown in most markets had it not been for the nearly 800 basis points impact on foreign exchange. The Covid-19 challenges, he said, had impacted the supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, “causing ship times to be extended far beyond what we had anticipated”. He added that production is now back to where they wanted it to be. On the third factor, he underlined that Apple is not immune to the “unprecedented circumstances across the world, from inflation to war in Easter Europe and the enduring impacts of the pandemic”.
“We actually did fairly well through COVID in India and I’m even more bullish now, hopefully on the other side of it. That’s the reason why we are investing thereby bringing retail there, bringing the online store there and putting out significant amount of energy there. I’m very bullish on India,” Cook said in the earnings call.
Cook said Apple had in the quarter the company had achieved a major milestone and now had over 2 billion active devices. Later in the earnings call he said Apple had set “all-time revenue records in a number of markets including Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, Turkey and Vietnam along with quarterly records in Brazil and India”. Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, qualified the numbers in emerging markets like India as “double digit” growth.
Answering analyst questions on Apple’s strides in India, Cook said, “Looking at the business in India, we set a quarterly revenue record and grew very strong double digits year over year and so we feel very good about how we performed. That’s despite the headwinds that we talked about.”
The Apple CEO added, “India is a hugely exciting market for us and a major focus. We brought the online store there in 2020. We will soon bring Apple Retail there. We are putting a lot of emphasis on the market. There’s been a lot going from financing options and trade-ins to make products more affordable and give people more options to buy.”
