While the commentariat assumes the worst, Apple delivers the best.
Last quarter Apple delivered a gross margin of 48.2%. This was above the high end of their guidance range and up 100 basis points sequentially. Management commented that this was “driven by favorable mix and leverage.”
Further, products gross margin was 40.7%, up 450 basis points sequentially, driven by favorable mix and leverage. Services gross margin was 76.5%, up 120 basis points sequentially, driven by mix.
This performance is even more astonishing considering the history shown below. Apple is quite simply, delivering at the highest gross and net margins in its history.
Note that the graph actually projects forward one quarter because we have the following guidance: “We expect gross margin to be between 48-49%.” The graph reflects the high end of this guidance range.
So what’s going on? Especially as a drumbeat of constant doom is being broadcast by pundits. The conference call itself seemed to be dedicated to margins. It became what I call the Margin Call.
Amit Daryanani, the first questioning analyst, specifically kicked off with the following:
“there is a lot of focus on the impact of memory to host the companies, and I would love to kind of get your perspective when you are first guiding gross margins up into March. Talk about, a, your comfort in securing the bit that you need for shipment and b, how do we think about memory inflation flowing through Apple’s model over time?”
Tim Cook answered:
We are currently constrained, and at this point, it is difficult to predict when supply and demand will balance. The constraints that we have are driven by the availability of the advanced nodes that our SoCs are produced on. And at this time, we are seeing less flexibility in the supply chain than normal, partly because of our increased demand that I just spoke about. From a memory point of view, to answer your question, memory had a minimal impact on Q1. So the December gross margin. We do expect it to be a bit more of an impact on the Q2 gross margin, and that was comprehended in the outlook of 48 to 49% that Kevin gave earlier.
what Apple is saying is that they are constrained by production of silicon but not of memory. They do see some impact in the future but that is included in a guidance of margin expansion.
Analysts still could not believe this, the following exchange soon followed:
Ben Reitzes: So the next question is on gross margin. I am pretty shocked I gotta hand it to you, Tim. I am, you know, that you are able to do 48 to 49. What is really going on there? How are you doing that with this memory, the NAND prices? Is it due to mix that there is a good less hardware and more services? Services and services margins are going up. How are you doing it to keep it at 48 to 49?
Kevan Parekh: Yeah, Ben. This is Kevin. [] Let me start maybe by just reflecting on the Q1 gross margin. I think we talked about the fact that we landed at 48.2%, so just above the high end of the range we provided, [], on the last call. [] if you look at that performance, [], we were up 100 basis points sequentially. We talked about the fact that we had favorable mix. [], as you know, when we have a good product cycle, strong price cycle we are seeing for iPhone, that does lend itself to a bit more favorable opportunity on the [] leverage side.
So we are having a strong iPhone cycle as Tim outlined. And so that also translates itself. So we talked about products sequentially went up by 450 basis points. So I think, in general, I think we are just seeing, [], favorable mix dynamics as well. [], service continues to contribute as well. That business is growing, [], double digits, so that also is a contributor. And I think that, [], if you looked at our guidance, [], we are providing a similar range to where we reported in December. There are going to be a few puts and takes. [], we do expect to see favorable mix in the services.
As you know, when we move from Q1 to Q2, that tends to be the case, and that is partly offset by a seasonal loss leverage. So there will be puts and takes, but again, we feel pretty good about the guide of 48 to 49%, which is similar to the range we reported in December.
Still not enough. Two more questions followed on margin. I will quote one here.
Aaron Rakers: Yep. And then as a quick follow-up, you know, kind of tied to memory, maybe not so much, but part of this current generation iPhone cycle is you clearly deepened some of your own internal silicon capabilities on the device. I am curious if that if we should think about that as a lever and maybe a supportive factor to gross margin that might be underappreciated and any thoughts on where we go from here as far as continual opportunities of internalizing your own silicon? Thank you.
Timothy D. Cook: Yeah. I will let Kevin talk about the gross margin. But in terms of the product, which is at the heart of what we think about in the user, Apple silicon has just been an incredible game changer for us. Starting with iPhone and then on iPad and, of course, the Mac as of a few years ago. And so we believe it is a game changer and a major advantage.
Kevan Parekh: Yeah. And as far as impact on gross margin, yeah, we have been, as you know, investing in core technologies like our own silicon and our own modem. And certainly, while those do provide opportunities for cost savings and can be plugged in margins, they also importantly provide, [], the differentiation that is really important for our products as well and us more control of our roadmap. So I think there is a lot of strategic value to it, but also we are seeing, [], investments in our core technologies impacting, [], gross margin in a positive way.
After all this, the financial commentariat continues to assume that Apple will be hit with margin pressure from memory and that has presumably been affecting the share price since the call.
Well, we’ve seen all this before. Before the great memory crisis Apple was going to be constrained by tariffs, by China, by developer dissatisfaction, by AI, by regulators, etc.
The feeling one gets is that Apple is always navigating through a minefield of pitfalls and gotchas. The opposite is true. It’s highly likely that Apple has sufficient leverage which increases its access to supply and that everyone is keen to work with the company. Leverage comes from scale, from lead time, from vertical integration and from engineering. Management is saying as much. Indeed, the evidence of leverage across the supply chain and over the entire ecosystem and economy is evident in its margin expansion story told in the graph above.