Tim Cook of Apple has hit back over criticism of the company’s first quarter of negative growth in 13 years and insisted sales in the period made for “an incredible quarter.”
In a rare interview, Mr Cook, Apple’s chief executive, responded on Monday to those who suggested the iPhone is “dead”, and appeared to hit out at Wall Street’s reaction to the company’s results.
“I think that’s a huge overreaction. We just had actually an incredible quarter by absolute standards,” he told CNBC. “Fifty billion-plus in revenues and ten billion in profits. To put that in perspective, the ten billion is more than any other company makes, so it was a pretty good quarter — but not up to the Street’s expectations, clearly.”
Carl Icahn, one of America’s most prominent investors, revealed last week that he had sold all his shares in Apple. Citing concerns over China, he said Beijing could “come in and make it very difficult for Apple to sell there”. Icahn had owned almost one per cent of the company.
Sales of the iPhone plunged by 16 per cent to $51.2 million (£34.74 million) in the quarter and revenues dropped by 13 per cent to $50.56 billion. Sales of the smartphone fell by more than a quarter in China.
Advertisement
Apple shares closed at $93.64 yesterday. They were trading at more than $130 in June last year.
Seeking to explain last week’s results, Mr Cook continued: “What we’re seeing is that people are upgrading at a different rate, a lower rate than they did last year, but still higher than the year before. So we had this abnormally high upgrade rate last year as people bought into the iPhone 6 and now we’re comparing to that, along with the other things going on that mini-companies are facing [like] the currency rates, macroeconomics, etc.
“But the most important thing is that customers love our products. And they’re using them, and the satisfaction’s never been higher, loyalty rates have never been higher. That is what is really important to us. That’s the most important thing for the long term of Apple.”
In a bid to stem concerns over the future of his company, Mr Cook sought to build expectations around what Apple was developing. “We’re going to give you things that you can’t live without that you just don’t know about today,” he said. “That has always been the objective of Apple.”
Mr Cook remained coy over what those projects could be. “We don’t talk about futures as a company,” he said. “We don’t talk about products on the roadmap. I’m incredibly excited about things we’re working on. I don’t want to be more specific than that.”
