Apple warns iPhone, Mac sales may slow amid supply crunch; Tim Cook says ‘seeing some significant constraints currently’
Apple has warned that acute supply bottlenecks will drag on iPhone and Mac sales in the coming months, highlighting significant hurdles for the tech giant
Apple has warned that acute supply bottlenecks will drag on iPhone and Mac sales in the coming months, highlighting significant hurdles for the tech giant as Tim Cook prepares to step down as Chief Executive Officer, according to Fortune. During his final quarterly earnings call as CEO, Cook maintained that he remains exceptionally optimistic regarding Apple’s long-term future. Cook has led the company for 15 years and will pass the CEO baton to John Ternus in September. The ongoing supply chain pinch is severely restricting Apple’s ability to secure the cutting-edge processors required for its flagship smartphones and computers, directly threatening future top-line growth. “We’re seeing some very significant constraints currently, with limited flexibility in the supply chain,” Cook said. “There’s a quarter where we’re going to be scrambling on the supply side,” he said.
iPhone revenues, which generate about half of the company's total sales, are projected to expand at a "mid-teens" percentage pace this quarter. This represents a noticeable slowdown from the 22% surge recorded in the previous quarter. Overall sales for the current quarter are expected to rise between 9% and 10% year-over-year, missing Wall Street's forecasted 12% expansion rate. Gross margins, which reached 48% of sales (excluding tariff refund impacts) last quarter, are also anticipated to face mounting strain in the upcoming period, the firm cautioned. Following the announcement, Apple's stock plummeted up to 8% in late trading on Thursday before slightly recovering to trade down roughly 6% from its $333.85 close. Holding a massive $4.9 trillion valuation as the world’s top market leader, Apple has been a standout performer among major tech peers, jumping 23% in 2026.
Although slow to roll out native AI models, Apple has pleased investors by avoiding the massive AI infrastructure capital expenditures consuming tech rivals like Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. However, the broader AI race is still hitting Apple's bottom line through the severe inflation of memory component pricing. Unprecedented demand for memory chips within AI data centers has created widespread shortages and caused component costs to skyrocket. “We did it because we’re in what I would characterize as a 100-year flood on the memory pricing,” Cook said on Thursday’s earnings call. Back in June, Apple was compelled to increase retail prices on Mac and iPad lineups to offset these soaring memory chip expenses. Cook pointed out that the global DRAM memory market remains heavily concentrated among just three primary suppliers.
The BriefWire