Apple shares jumped 3% in premarket trading on Friday after the iPhone maker reported its strongest quarterly sales growth in more than four years, shortly after tech giant Apple announced a major role-transformative change, a display of momentum as it prepares to hand the reins to a new CEO.<\/p>\n
The company recently announced that Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO to become executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors, while his successor, John Ternes, currently Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, has been named the next CEO.<\/p>\n
Current reports from Shares indicate that its latest iPhone 17 Pro series and newly launched low-cost MacBook Neo laptops are attracting buyers at a time of low overall demand in the consumer electronics industry due to price hikes due to memory chip shortages.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nEven though Apple’s margins for the January\u2013March quarter and its fiscal third quarter forecast were above Wall Street estimates, outgoing CEO Tim Cook warned that higher memory costs would increasingly hit the business from June.<\/p>\n The limited supply of advanced processors for the iPhone has already hampered Apple’s ability to capitalize on strong demand. The chips are made by Taiwan’s TSMC, a leading maker of AI processors.<\/p>\n Apple’s long-standing dominance of suppliers may put it in a better position than rivals in securing memory chips, but it may have to raise prices later this year, analysts say.<\/p>\n “The key question will be to strike the right balance strategically between increasing prices and maintaining profitability or focusing on gaining share by not raising prices,” said Nabila Popal, a senior research director at IDC.<\/p>\n “I think Apple will raise the prices of the Pro and Pro Max at launch in the upcoming autumn; however, even if they don’t, the upcoming super high-end iPhone Fold \u2013 which we expect to exceed $2200 \u2013 will help offset some of the increased costs.”<\/p>\n The results, which also included a forecast of 14% to 17% sales growth for the current quarter that beat estimates, bode well for the company, ahead of hardware major John Ternes taking over as CEO in September. Cook will remain executive chairman.<\/p>\n The change comes as Apple looks to close the gap with rivals Microsoft and Alphabet, which have moved to rapidly roll out AI features and infrastructure.<\/p>\n Investors are expected to hear more about its AI plans at the annual Software Developer Conference in June.<\/p>\n Some analysts said Apple’s decision not to aim to bring its net cash\u2014minus cash debt\u2014to a net neutral position could help it better manage its financial position in the AI \u200b\u200bage.<\/p>\n TD Cowen analysts said the move gives it more balance-sheet flexibility, allowing it to absorb higher costs, support share buybacks and deploy capital more strategically.<\/p>\n Apple Inc.’s more volatile gains compared to the Nasdaq Composite’s consistent upward trend.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nThe results bode well for Apple’s new CEO:<\/h2>\n