Apple reports higher sales in China

• Apple Inc. reported sales and profits that beat Wall Street expectations Thursday, with chief executive Tim Cook saying China sales were “headed in the right direction” as that country reopens from the novel coronavirus.

But Cook said it was impossible to forecast overall results for the current quarter because of uncertainty created by the virus.

With its global brand, few American companies have been exposed to the spread of the coronavirus like Apple, whose iphone sales declined in the March quarter as device sales were forced to online- only in many places. Sales of services such as streaming television content rose with billions of people locked in their homes.

China, where the virus was first detected, is both a major market for Apple, supplying about a sixth of its overall sales, and is also home to most of Apple’s contract factories.

Apple saw China sales of US$ 9.46 billion, down less than a US$ 1 billion from a year ago, as a potential sign of how the company will fare as other markets emerge from lockdowns.

“When the lockdown went into effect at the end of January, we saw a very steep falloff in demand for the month of February,” Cook told Reuters.

Apple slowly reopened Chinese stores, with all running again by mid- March. “As compared to February, we saw a nice improvement in March and a further improvement in April. China is headed in the right direction.”

Apple reported sales of US$ 58.3 billion and earnings of US$ 2.55 per share for its fiscal second quarter ended in March, above year- ago results of US$ 58 billion and US$ 2.46, and above analyst estimates of US$ 54.5 billion and US$ 2.27, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.