SAN FRANCISCO, July 30 (Reuters) - Apple forecast sales for the current quarter ending in September would grow more slowly than Wall Street targeted as the iPhone maker struggled to get the parts it needed to deliver products, and shares fell 6% in after-hours trade.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh told analysts and investors on a call that the iPhone maker expects revenue growth of 9% to 11% in the quarter compared to the year before. That was less than the 12% rise predicted by Wall Street, according to LSEG data. He forecast iPhone revenue would grow at a mid-teens rate, compared with Wall Street's target of 17.6%, according to LSEG, and that gross profit margins would be between 47% and 48%.
"We're seeing some very significant (supply) constraints currently with limited flexibility in the supply chain to remedy it," Chief Executive Tim Cook said during the conference call, adding that Apple was "evaluating all options" for alternative suppliers of components.
In an interview with Reuters, Cook said that the main supply constraint that Apple had during the just-ended fiscal third quarter was an industry shortage of advanced chipmaking technology used to produce the Apple silicon chips at the heart of its devices.
Cook said that was particularly true for the company's Mac lineup, whose sales grew 29% on the strength of the entry-level MacBook Neo and the high-end MacBook Pro despite price increases for those models.
"If you look at the root causes behind those, it's that we're having an incredibly strong product cycle beyond our expectations, and the (advanced chipmaking) supply chain just fundamentally has less flexibility in it to meet the high levels of demand," Cook told Reuters.
Apple is also grappling with a supply chain strained by hundreds of billions of dollars of spending to build out AI data centers, leading to a thinly concealed conflict with longtime memory supplier Micron MU.O. Cook has previously noted shortages of both memory chips and the main processor for iPhones supplied by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co 2330.TW.
Apple AAPL.O earlier on Thursday reported sales and profits in the June quarter that beat analysts' expectations as customers snapped up iPhones and MacBooks while prices increased across the consumer electronics sector.
But rising services revenue failed to meet Wall Street targets. Expectations were high for Apple, which recently regained the title of world's most valuable company. Its shares have risen more than 22% this year, retaking the top spot from AI chip leader Nvidia NVDA.O.
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