The severe winter of flagging electronic consumption affects not only the Android mobile camp, but also Apple Inc, who has always been the norm.

Apple Inc released its report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 (corresponding to the fourth quarter of 2022) on Feb. 3, Beijing time. According to the financial report, Apple Inc's revenue in the quarter was 117.15 billion US dollars, down 5.48 percent compared with the same period last year; net profit was 29.998 billion US dollars, down 13.38 percent from the same period last year, and the growth rate of revenue and net profit both declined.

In response, Cook, CEO of Apple Inc, said at a subsequent performance communication meeting, "the decline in revenue is due to the exchange rate and iPhone supply. Had it not been for the supply chain problems of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, the company would have estimated that iPhone revenue would have increased compared with the same period last year."

In terms of revenue composition, in addition to an increase in service revenue and iPad revenue, revenue from iPhone, Mac and wearable devices, home furnishings and accessories all declined in the quarter compared with the same period last year. Among them, Apple Inc's "cash cow" business iPhone revenue fell 8.17% compared with the same period last year.

Due to lower-than-expected revenue and net profit, Apple Inc's share price began to decline after the US stock market, falling as much as 5.7 per cent at one point after the day. As the company with the largest market capitalization of US stocks, Apple Inc, whose hardware business income has declined significantly, urgently needs to create new demand and look for the next "money printing press."

For the US capital market, Apple Inc is an important weather vane. Nasdaq, which has gradually stepped out of the haze of raising interest rates, has risen sharply in the past two days, but it is under pressure again because of Apple Inc's declining performance.

IPhone "oracle" is no longer

Since its launch in 2007, iPhone has become the most successful product in Apple Inc's development history, both in terms of sales volume and revenue contribution. Apple Inc's income is divided into two major parts, one is hardware, including iPhone, Mac, iPad and other products such as wearables, home devices and accessories, and the other is application store and Apple TV+ and other software services, including advertising, AppleCare, digital content, payment and other services. Among them, hardware revenue has always been the core of Apple Inc's revenue.

One of the few bright spots in Apple Inc's performance in the first quarter of 2023 was service income. Apple Inc's service revenue in the quarter was $20.766 billion, up 6.49% from a year earlier. In this regard, Apple Inc CFO Luca. Luca Maestri said at the results meeting that 2 billion Apple Inc devices were activated worldwide by the end of 2022, 200m more than in January last year, and Apple Pay set a record for trading in the first quarter.

However, judging from the decline in Apple Inc's after-hours share price, the growth of service revenue obviously cannot satisfy the capital market, because the service income, which accounts for less than 20% of revenue, will not support Apple Inc's future growth. The trend of Apple Inc's future income and market capitalization is still greatly affected by the development of hardware business such as iPhone, Mac, iPad, etc.

Revenue for iPhone in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 was $65.775 billion, down 8.17% from the first quarter of fiscal 2022, down 8.17% from $7.74 billion, and 29% from $9.396 billion, up 30.5% from a year earlier. Revenue from wearables, homes and accessories was $13.482 billion, down 8.29% from a year earlier.

In hardware revenue, iPhone accounts for the bulk of Apple Inc's revenue, and was once known as Apple Inc's "money printing machine". The launch of "thirteen incense" (iPhone 13 series) in the autumn of 2021 brought Apple Inc a "record quarterly revenue", with revenue of 123.9 billion US dollars in that quarter, more than twice that of Microsoft Corp.

Although Cook explained that Apple Inc's lower-than-expected revenue was mainly affected by factors such as the interruption of the iPhone supply chain, when iPhone revenue fell by 8.17% year-on-year, Apple Inc executives may need to consider which innovative products can fill the revenue gap caused by the iPhone decline in the coming period of time.

Cook gave the answer in an interview with the media at the end of 2021: Apple Inc is focusing on three new directions: AI artificial intelligence, AR augmented reality and automation. Among them, AI artificial intelligence refers to Apple Inc's future display through Siri and brand-new forms; AR augmented reality mainly refers to wearable devices such as glasses or headphones; and automation is aimed at the Apple Inc car with self-driving function to be released in 2025.

Judging from the recent revelation of Apple Inc's MR by The Information, it is possible to keep pace with iPhone in the next few years is a MR (mixed reality) codenamed "N301".

It is difficult to find the next "money printer"

On January 3, local time, the US media "The Information" exposed the configuration and details of Apple Inc's MR head display, including processor, display, camera, battery, software and content, and revealed that the price of the MR head display was around $3000 or more.

According to Bloomberg analyst Mark. According to Mark Gurman, Apple Inc's headdisplay device, which is likely to be named "Reality Pro", will be released this spring ahead of Apple Inc's Global developers Conference (WWDC) and go on sale this fall.

Apple Inc's investment in AR/VR products began eight years ago. According to Tim. Cook Biography: Apple Inc's reflection and Business Future record: in 2015, Apple Inc launched an AR/VR project codenamed T288, which includes MR head display codenamed N301 and AR glasses codenamed N421. In 2014, Meta bought Oculus, a maker of VR headsets, for $2 billion to focus on virtual reality.

Unlike Oculus Quest, which already accounts for more than 70 per cent of the global VR market, Apple Inc's AR/VR project frequently "skips tickets" and is caught in the dilemma of "big thunder and little rain". Apple Inc's smart glasses were originally planned to be released in 2019, and then adjusted the release time several times, Bloomberg reported.

For Apple Inc Touxian equipment may go on sale this autumn, Tianfeng Securities analyst Guo Mingyi said: "Apple Inc AR/MR headwear development progress because the mechanism drop test is not standard, and the software development tool schedule is later than expected, a large number of shipments may be delayed from the original second quarter of 2023 to the end of the second quarter of 2023 or the third quarter of 2023."

In addition to AR/MR products, the capital market also placed high hopes on Apple Inc's automobile project. The Apple Inc automobile project, which was once known by the public as a result of a lawsuit, is also doomed.

In March 2015, US electric car battery maker A123 sued Apple Inc for poaching his senior engineer to set up a large-scale battery division. Apple Inc began poaching engineers for key projects from A123 around June 2014, forcing him to shut down the project and need to "find replacements at a very high cost", according to the A123 lawsuit. So far, the self-driving project Titna, which has been secretly carried out within Apple Inc, has moved from behind the scenes to the foreground.

Data show that Jobs became interested in Tesla, Inc. and his new electric car as early as 2008, but the Titan project was officially approved in 2014, headed by Steve Zadesky, then vice president of product design for Apple Inc. Cook allowed Zadesky to hire 1000 people to expand the Titan team.

At that time, not only A123, BMW and Mercedes were poached. Designers and engineers of well-known automobile companies such as Mercedes-Benz and Tesla, Inc. have become the targets courted by Apple Inc. In this regard, Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) once ridiculed Apple Inc car as a "Tesla, Inc. graveyard." "if you can't work at Tesla, Inc., you can go to Apple Inc," Musk said in an interview with the German business newspaper.

Tesla, Inc. 's experience of walking to the brink of bankruptcy several times told his peers that building a car is by no means easy, and Apple Inc also suffered a lot to understand that building a car is not as simple as spending money to poach people.

In January 2016, Zadesky left Apple Inc, who had been fighting for 16 years for "personal reasons", and rumors of unrest within the Titan team spread. Six months later, Bob Mansfield (Bob Mansfield), then Apple Inc's senior vice president of hardware engineering, became the new head of the Titan project. Three months later, more than 100 employees of the project left one after another.

Intriguingly, Cook kept quiet about the Titan project until 2017. It was not until June 2017 that Cook confirmed to Bloomberg News, "Apple Inc is focused on self-driving system, and we regard it as a very important core technology, and it can even be said to be the source of all AI projects."

However, Cook's "approval" did not make the Titan project go more smoothly. At the end of 2020, the head of the Titan project was replaced again, and Bob Mansfield retired, and John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy of Apple Inc, replaced the former as the head of the automotive project, reporting directly to Cook.

Several changes in charge of the project have become a footnote to Apple Inc's ill-fated automobile development. In March 2022, Guo Mingyi, who has been analyzing and revealing Apple Inc's information all the year round, once again revealed: "Apple Inc's automobile team has been disbanded for some time." If you want to mass-produce cars in 2025, Apple Inc needs to reorganize the team within 6 months. "

Judging from the fact that Apple Inc later poached R & D staff from Lamborghini, Apple Inc did not intend to give up the car project, which had been under development for eight years.

In July 2022, Apple Inc poached Luigi, the top automobile R & D manager, from Lamborghini. Luigi Taraborrelli is responsible for the design of the car of the future, who has worked at Lamborghini for 20 years and is head of chassis and vehicle dynamics.

Up to now, it has not been decided what Apple Inc's concept map looks like, and whether Apple Inc's car can be mass produced as promised in 2025 remains to be verified by the market.

Hidden worries caused by the departure of core executives

For Apple Inc, the uncertain factors of future growth are not only headline and automobile and other innovative projects, the frequent change of core management is also one of the hidden worries of Apple Inc's future performance growth.

According to incomplete statistics from Deep Web, nearly 10 core executives left Apple Inc and announced their retirement in the past year, including CIO Mary Demby, Chief Privacy Officer Jane Horvath and so on.

It has been revealed that Apple Inc has more than 100 vice presidents, more than 30 of whom report directly to Cook. Many of the people who announced their departure in 2022 were "veterans" who had worked for Apple Inc for more than 20 years. For example, Tony Blevins, vice president of procurement, spent 22 years at Apple Inc, and Mary Demby, former chief information officer, spent 30 years at Apple Inc.

Among the outgoing vice presidents, Tony Blevins, former vice president in charge of Apple Inc's purchasing business, and Evans, vice president of industrial design. The departure of Evans Hankey has attracted a lot of attention.

Apple Inc is known as the "master of supply chain management" in the industry. According to statistics, the inventory cycle of Apple Inc is about 7 days, while according to wind data, XIAOMI's inventory turnover days are 80.54 days in the first quarter of 2022, which is more than 10 times that of Apple Inc.

In Apple Inc's efficient supply chain management, Tony Blevins is the "humerus minister" to reduce the price cost of Apple Inc's supply chain, and can report directly to Cook. In addition, Tony Blevins also played an important role in the patent fee dispute between Apple Inc and Qualcomm Inc.

The departure of Tony Blevins may create a vacancy for key positions in Apple Inc's supply chain. Some Apple Inc employees speculated: "given his understanding of Apple Inc's supply chain and excellent negotiation skills, Tony Blevins is difficult to replace."

Like Tony Blevins, Evans, a former vice president of industrial design. The departure of Evans Hankey also plagued Apple Inc with a "brain drain". Evans。 Hankey is Johnny, the legendary designer of Apple Inc. The successor to Jony Ive.

Johnny. Ivy joined Apple Inc in 1992 and began to lead Apple Inc's design team in 1996. Apple Inc's early transparent color iMac, iPod, and later iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Apple Watch and other products are from Johnny. The hand of Ivy. Apple Inc's "Soul" Jobs once commented in his biography: in Apple Inc, if I have a spiritual partner, it is Johnny. "

November 2019, Johnny. Ivy officially left Apple Inc to set up his own design company, LoveFrom. For Johnny. With Ivy's departure, the New York Times quoted more than a dozen people who had worked closely with Ivy as saying: "Ivy has been disappointed because Cook is more operational and focused on selling software and services rather than a leap in design." switched to a part-time job. "

Johnny. Ivy's departure dealt a great blow to Apple Inc. Even Cook stressed in the statement that "in the future Apple Inc will work with Johnny." Ivy directly cooperates with exclusive projects and will maintain long-term cooperation, "which also failed to stop Apple Inc's loss of 9 billion US dollars in market value after the day's trading.

Right now, Evans. The departure of Evans Hankey means that Apple Inc is looking for a replacement for Evans. The candidate for the Hankey post. However, due to Apple Inc's lack of a clear "successor training plan", it is not easy to find a suitable successor in the short term.

According to foreign media reports, the two remaining veterans in Apple Inc's industrial design team did not replace Evans. Hankey's wishes. One is Richard Howarth, who has worked for Apple Inc for 26 years, and the other is Bart Andre, who has worked for Apple Inc for more than 30 years.

For the 47-year-old Apple Inc, the change of management may have brought "fresh blood" to the company. But in 2023, when revenue and net profit growth declined and innovative products were not yet available, the departure of the core figures added more uncertainty to Apple Inc.

At present, Apple Inc believes more in the premium and profits brought by his own brand than innovative projects such as Touxian and automobile. Apple Inc launched a separate "home" section on the home page of China's official website on January 10, selling third-party brand products such as cameras, light bulbs, door locks, switches, routers and sockets. Apple Inc doesn't mind looking for profits from marginal areas before launching the next popular style product.

Edit / phoebe