Apple has faced supply chain disruptions due to the various and sundry responses – rational and irrational – to COVID-19 which hampered the company’s ability to meet robust consumer demand. Apple likely could’ve generated billions more dollars in sales this quarter (fiscal Q3) sans those constraints.
Parkev Tatevosian for The Motley Fool:
In its conference call that followed its second-quarter earnings release, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said, “We expect these constraints to be in the range of $4 billion to $8 billion, which is substantially larger than what we experienced during the March quarter.” To put those figures into context, Apple reported sales of $77 billion in its second quarter, which ended on March 26.
Therefore, missing out on $6 billion of sales (the midpoint of the estimate) would be a significant sum, to be sure, but not a catastrophe for a company the size of Apple. Still, investors want to see an end to these constraints so the company can serve consumer demand. Otherwise, Apple runs the risk of losing these customers to competitors.
CEO Tim Cook noted that the supply constraints resulting from manufacturing shutdowns in Shanghai had been eliminated as of March 26. However, outbreaks of COVID-19 have persisted since Cook gave that update to investors. China’s zero-COVID policy risks government-mandated business restrictions due to even small outbreaks.