Apple Hammered By EU
Apple has been charged with breaking EU competition rules over the way it runs its App Store. European Commission anti-trust regulator Margrethe Vestager tweeted that ,"Consumers are losing out". It relates to charges brought two years ago by music streaming app Spotify which claimed that Apple was deliberately obstructing innovation.
Apple now faces a large fine and may be forced to change its policies if its arguments do not convince regulators. Furthermore, Apple could take a $4 billion shortfall due to an ongoing global chip shortage which could reduce iPads and Mac sales.
Apple has posted record revenues for its fiscal 2021 second quarter, with sales of its Mac desktop computers hitting an all-time high of $9.1 billion. Overall revenues hit $89.6 billion for the quarter ending in March 2021, a rise of 54% year-on-year, the majority of which came from sales of the iPhone, at $47 billion.
International sales accounted for 67% of the quarter’s revenue, with fiscal second-quarter sales to China nearly doubling.
Demand for Macs has surged during the past year of mass remote work, although Apple CEO Tim Cook has also suggested that consumers have responded strongly to the new M1 chip, its in-house processor for Mac computers. " The last three quarters on Mac have been the strongest three quarters ever in the history of the Mac," Cook told Reuters.
Cook also suggested it would be difficult to source semiconductors made with older chip technology. It has emerged that Apple has long delays to its iPad and MacBook shipments and has probably postponed part of its component orders for its iPad and MacBook devices till the second half of 2021.
Cisco’s CEO Chuck Robbins said that the global semiconductor shortage will last for at least another six months and that supply was unlikely to be fully resolved until 2022. He added the shortage had been caused by unprecedented demand for semiconductors which “go in virtually everything”.Amazon is reportedly getting ready to make its own networking chips for its internal IT infrastructure and AWS, it was reported recently.
Apple has done very well throughout the coronavirus pandemic, as home-bound consumers stocked up on electronic devices and signed up for paid apps and services for fitness and music, and sales shot up even higher as Apple released 5G iPhone models in Q3 last year.
Reuters: European Union: ITPro: BBC: Image: Unsplash
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