Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is a breaking news update from Bloomberg. Instant reaction and analysis from our three thousand journalists and analysts around the world. Apple shares actually moving into the moving into the green. Carol hours up just ever so slightly, three four tons of one percent.
Don't see a new headline, but yeah, investors coming in as stocks up about zero point two point three percent here.
Okay, Well, there were some beats and there were some misses. Let's start with the missus fourth quarter Greater China revenue A big, big miss there, fourteen point four nine billion dollars. The estimus for sixteen point four to three billion dollars overall revenue, though coming in above one hundred billion dollars that for the first time ever for the September quarter Greater China revenue twelve percent below CONCESSUS estimate. Services came
in with a nice beat. Another miss, surprisingly, the iPhone forty nine point zero three billion versus forty nine point three billion dollars.
Yeah, Mark German saying operating expensive expenses which everyone is now closely watching. Things to Meta came in line with expectations of fifteen point nine one billion. I'm sure we will hear more about investing on the call that's coming from our Mark German, who covers Apple so closely and looks at consumer tech overall. Let's get to it with Jay Goldberg. He's senior analysts semiconductors and Electronics at Seaport Research Partners. He's got to buy on Apple joining us
from San Francisco. Take it away, Apple, what do you think?
Yeah, it looks it looks okay. It's it's not perfect, it's not totally clean, but it's it's got some good stuff. It's got some you know, okay stuff.
The yeah, go ahead, Carol, Well what's good?
What's okay?
I mean, just going against my numbers, it looks like services is much stronger than I expected. iPhone was good, iPad was surprisingly good. I don't know if anyone tracks that anymore, but iPad was good and gross margins were better than expected. I've been a little cautious about gross margins and consumer companies lately because memory prices are going up. But that's not I don't see that in Apple's numbers. So,
you know, the China stuff. You pointed that out. I think that's that's concerning not entirely surprising.
It's not surprising twelve percent below consensus. Why so it surprised some people?
Uh yeah, I mean just given the state of the world, I think I think expecting too much from an American company selling you to China right now is is going to always disappoint. But you know, hopefully we have a trade deal and that all goes away.
It's a trade truce, I think, is the way that we heard about it today. Trade is a trade truce, and not for that to go away.
I think. So I think more and more practically what was going on in China is the iPad, the iPhone error is not available there. It's hard to get here. Production that hasn't fully ramped yet, and I think that's going to be the real hit, right And this is Apple. They know how to get their supply chain in time for the year end holiday shopping season, and I don't think I've had I don't think the iPhone Air is readily available in China, so I think that will that
will help. And so if you're a Chinese consumer, you're looking at it, you see the iPhone Air coming, You're going to hold off on your iPhone purchases now and wait for that all right.
Shares of Apple now up about one percent here in the aftermarket, so bounce it around, no doubt about it. Are Mark German on our live blog, who covers Apple and often is breaking exclusives on the company, noting that
while China is harsh, they are likely pleased investors. They are likely pleased with the overall revenue growth of eight percent, the giant services number, that's something Jaye just pointed out, and the six percent year over year iPhone growth overall a solid quarter, So top of mind for you, Like, what is it that you would what do you want to know more from when it comes to Apple here, jay.
I think I'm willing to wait on the AI story. I know your previous guest was talking about that, and he's absolutely right. The AI story is important for Apple, but I don't think it's important today. I can wait six months, nine months, a year for them to sort it out, right when remember when Apple Maps launched whatever ten years ago? It was terrible, it was a joke. Now I use Apple Maps more than I use Google Maps.
It's gotten it's gotten better. Sometimes Apple just takes a while to get there, So I'm okay waiting with it. They need to solve it, that's really important, but they don't need to solve it this quarter. I would like to just hear them talk about supply chain and what's going on in China, and you know what's driving What are the dynamics of the iPhone business? I think that's the most important.
Is there a compelling reason for people to upgrade to seventeen? To the iPhone seventeen?
I think the air is pretty intriguing. I'm on the fence. I usually upgrade every year. I think I'm gonna hold out though, because I'm pretty surey're gonna have a foldable phone next year, so that'll be exciting. But I think that, you know, everyone I talked to has the air is just it raves about it, like they're enthusiastic about this iPhone in a way that I haven't heard people be enthusiastic about an iPhone in many years.
Just to rehash, we've got now shares of Apple up about one point eight percent here in the after market. So this is despite those disappointing sales in China, which did fall short of analyst estimates, but strong over sales in the overall sales in the period. Hey, let's go to our LA bureau for a moment. We're going to come back to Jay Goldberg in just a minute or two.
Marcus Bloomberg, news Managing editor for Global Consumer Technology. He is out there in our LA bureau, mark fascinating in a short period of time, twelve minutes to see the stock being sold off a little bit to now rallying almost two percent. Walk us through this quarter. What stands out here?
Yeah, what stands out here is iPhone obviously grew tremendously six percent year over year. They beat in nearly every product category except the iPad. Had an extremely slight miss on Wall Street forecast, and again those are just forecast numbers that get made up anyways, so I don't think too big of a deal there. The big one, though,
is a big decline in miss in Greater China. I think some of that can be attributed to the iPhone Air delay, which was not expected, and they originally announced the iPhone Air they anticipated a September release alongside the other models. That model has been doing decently in China since it was released just about a week ago.
Now.
The other thing to point out is the seesaw you saw. Originally the stock dipped on the China development and maybe iPhone sales weren't as strong as some had anticipated. But Tim Cook told news outlets that got pre briefed on the Apple earnings results earlier today that the December quarter would grow ten to twelve percent on an annual basis,
which is obviously a fantastic jump for them. That is a year over year growth on holiday period we have not seen for a very long time, and Apple hasn't provided guidance in a very long time because of COVID and everything that's happened since then. So it's pretty significant.
Yeah, shares up two point nine percent as we speak right now. Mark, just one more question for you, and I know you got to run on China and a big miss on China. You said it's not too surprising yet still came in twelve percent below consensus estimates. Is I'm not going to say Apples should throw in the towel in China, but how vulnerable is Apple in China?
They're certainly vulnerable in China, but they have obviously a big retail portfolio there of about fifty stores. As I've said multiple times, they need to start launching products that
are specific to the Chinese market. They still don't have their AI strategy together in China, and so we'll see once AI is implemented in iPhones in China next year, if that begins helping turn some things around, and we'll see we're going to have some pent up demand in China now for the current court or the first court or the holiday period because the iPhone Air didn't go on sale in September during the September period.
All right, Mark, we know you got to run over to the TV side, so appreciate you jumping on with us. Mark German, he's Bloomberg News Maaging editor for Global Consumer Tech. Really, as we remind everybody, our go to on Apple breaking all these exclusives, and right now the stock is trending higher now up about three point five percent. I will point out that Mark mentioned some news that the chief
financial officer had shared with some various media outlets. I'm just looking at the Financial Times and again just going back to that Apple gave a bullish outlook for its crucial holiday sales period, reported record annual profit today, the CFO Kevin Perrick, saying Apple expects total company revenue to grow ten to twelve percent year over year in the three months to December, with iPhone revenue growing double digits.
So that's what Mark was talking about, and that is probably why we are seeing Apple shares do that turnaround now, up almost four percent in the after market. Yeah.
Yeah, pretty remarkable to see the turnaround, but you know that's what happens, and you get more detail from executives. The call hasn't even started yet, so we'll wait for the call also to start and maybe we'll see some more movement there too. Just to repeat. Fourth quarter iPad revenue coming in ever so slightly below estimates at six point nine five billion dollars. Products revenue coming in above estimates.
Greater China revenue a big miss there, fourteen point four nine billion dollars, twelve percent below consensus estimates of sixteen point four to three billion dollars. Fourth quarter earnings per share coming in above estimates at one dollar and eighty five cents, MAC revenue beating at eight point seven three billion dollars. Fourth quarter services revenue also a beat there, twenty eight point seventy five billion dollars.
Try to turn around in the after market trade,