Apple stock rebounds despite its first revenue fall in years

Apple cutout outside Apple Store
(Image credit: Future)

Apple's share price has started to rebound after falling sharply, as the company shared details of its first revenue fall in years on Wednesday. 

Apple's quarterly earnings were reported yesterday, with the company suffering its first reduction since 2019. AAPL suffered, falling more than 3% in pre-market trading on Friday.

Recent checks show that Apple's shares are starting an upward trend, however. At the time of publication a share was selling for $151.94, up from $147.88.

Going up

Apple was already expected to report relatively poor earnings for the quarter that ended December 31, 2022, but Yahoo Finance suggests that investor nerves may have been frayed by the response Apple put out.

A quarterly earnings call including CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri saw the pair use some variation of the phrase "challenging economy" seven times, the outlet notes.

To give context, Apple posted revenues of $117.1 billion versus the $121.1 billion expected with iPhone revenue particularly hard hit — $65.7 billion versus $68.3 billion expected.

Apple blamed supply chain issues as one of the reasons for relatively poor iPhone performance, and it might have a point. Customers couldn't buy its best iPhones for a period thanks to ongoing issues at a Foxconn plant in China

The newly-released iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max were hit hardest, with devices hard to come by in Apple Stores around the world.

Analysts had already warned that Apple's earnings could see it post its first top-line decline in years, and so it came to pass. But the initial share price shock seems to be easing, with prices working their way north this morning.

Investors may well be buoyed by the fact that Apple's vital Services business continues to grow, raking in $20.7 billion versus the $20.4 billion that was previously expected of it.

Investors and Apple alike will no doubt hope that things improve across the board ahead of its next quarterly earnings report.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.