Mac sales “supercharged” as Apple smashes revenue targets

CFO warns of $4bn hit due to ongoing chip shortage

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Mac mini (Image: IT Pro)

29 April 2021

Apple has posted record revenues for its fiscal 2021 second quarter, with sales of its Mac desktop computers hitting an all-time high of $9.1 billion.

Overall revenues hit $89.6 billion for the quarter ending in March 2021, a rise of 54% year-on-year, the majority of which came from sales of the iPhone, at $47 billion.

International sales accounted for 67% of the quarter’s revenue, with fiscal second-quarter sales to China nearly doubling.

Demand for Macs has surged during the past year of mass remote work, although Apple CEO Tim Cook has also suggested that consumers have responded strongly to the new M1 chip, its in-house processor for Mac computers.

“Both of those things happening at once really supercharged the Mac sales. The last three quarters on Mac have been the strongest three quarters ever in the history of the Mac,” Cook said, speaking to Reuters.

Despite this, the company warned that the ongoing global chip shortage could affect the supply of iPads and Macs, with CFO Luca Maestri estimating revenues could fall as much as $4 billion as a result.

Cook also suggested it would be difficult to source semiconductors made with older chip technology.

It emerged earlier this month that Apple was facing significant delays to its iPad and MacBook shipments. Apple had reportedly postponed part of its component orders for its iPad and MacBook devices from the first half of 2021 to the second half.

Cisco’s CEO Chuck Robbins predicted this week that the global semiconductor shortage will last for at least another six months and that supply was unlikely to be fully resolved until 2022. He added the shortage had been caused by unprecedented demand for semiconductors which “go in virtually everything”.

Apple isn’t the only company to have started equipping its devices with its own custom processors in order to rely less on other companies. Amazon is reportedly getting ready to make its own networking chips for its internal IT infrastructure and AWS, it was reported last month.

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