Tech company expected to report 4% rise in revenue over past quarter despite drop in stock price and looming tariffs
Apple has been under pressure this year. It’s playing catch-up to its fellow tech giants on artificial intelligence, it’s seen its stock fall by double digits since the year began, it closed a store in China for the first time ever this week, and looming US tariffs on Beijing threaten its supply chain. On Thursday, the company will release its third-quarter earnings of the fiscal year as investors scrutinize how the iPhone maker might turn things around.
Despite the gloomy outlook, the company is still worth more than $3tn, and Wall Street appears optimistic it will deliver on earnings. Analysts are expecting Apple to report a 4% rise in revenue over the last quarter to $89.3bn, according to S&P Global.
“Apple has grown accustomed to having revenue growth in this high-margin services business, which masks other areas of the business not performing as well,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, a vice-president and principal analyst for Forrester.
Chatterjee points to several issues that have led to Apple’s less-than-stellar performance of late. He says Apple has lagged on hardware innovation, causing “consumer apathy” and its AI rollout has been glitchy. Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI product, has been limited to incremental features and rather than transformational upgrades. And it’s been more than a year since Apple announced a suite of AI upgrades to its voice assistant Siri – many of which have yet to be released.
