Apple will likely report a more than 4% drop in revenue, its second straight quarterly decline, after U.S. markets close on Thursday. iPhone demand and production are expected to have recovered in China after the CCP’s draconian, now-abandoned “Zero COVID” disruptions last year which finally set Apple on a path to diversify production outside of authoritarian China in countries such as India and Vietnam.
“Apple is seeing moderate headwinds in its hardware businesses as iPhones face modest contraction in premium device demand and the iPad and Mac businesses could be weighed down by consumer and enterprise trends,” analysts at Cowen and Co said.
Apple investors, however, would be encouraged by a recovery in China, the company’s third-largest market.
“The reopening of China, both from the supply chain and the consumer demand standpoint, works in Apple’s favor,” said Tom Forte of D.A. Davidson, who expects iPhone sales there to rise.
A near 1% pullback in the dollar during the quarter is also a bright spot in what is typically a weak period following the holiday shopping season, analysts said.
“For Apple, it is much more about a user growth story than a unit growth story,” said KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel, who believes efforts to grow market share in developing economies such as India and Brazil will be crucial.
He expects Apple to have added 30 million users to its active installed user base – the number of active Apple devices in the world. That figure stood at 2 billion as of end December.
MacDailyNews Take: 30 million is more than three times the total population of Seoul, South Korea, home of iPhone knockoff peddler Samsung. 
MacDailyNews Note: As always, we’ll have Apple’s results on May 4th right around 1:30 p.m. PT / 4:30 p.m. ET. followed by live notes from Apple’s conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PT / 5:00 p.m. ET.
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