Apple’s stock underperformed top tech peers in 2023 due to longest revenue slide in 22 years

Published

2 years ago

December 29, 2023

admin

Apple CEO Tim Cook stands next to a new Apple Vision Pro headset displayed during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California, June 5, 2023.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Apple’s stock rallied in 2023, but its performance was outshined by all of its mega-cap tech peers, as the company suffered four straight quarters of declining revenue. It’s the longest such slide for Apple since the dot-com bust of 2001.

Some of Apple’s troubles this year were due to a bad economic environment for phones and computers. Over the summer, total smartphone sales were the slowest in more than a decade.

But Apple also dealt with some company-specific issues. Apple didn’t release new iPad models in 2023, the first time that’s happened in a calendar year since the product was launched in 2010. Without new models, Apple has less to promote, and older versions of the product don’t see official price cuts that boost sales.

Earlier this month, all current model iPads were shipping from Apple’s website in a day, according to Morgan Stanley analysts. That’s a sign of weak demand because with the hottest products, Apple doesn’t have enough supply to ship that quickly.

In fiscal 2023, which ended in September, Apple’s iPad revenue dropped 3.4% to $28.3 billion. On a unit basis, iPad sales were even worse, falling 15%, according to a recent estimate from Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan. Apple doesn’t report unit sales.

To make matters worse, new Apple Watch models were removed from Apple stores in the U.S. days before Christmas over an intellectual property dispute. After a late December appeal, the devices have been returned to store shelves, but Morgan Stanley analysts estimate Apple lost about $135 million in sales per day during the brief ban.

Even for Apple’s new products, like Mac computers, consumers showed less interest in opening their wallets for devices with minor upgrades. Sales of Mac PCs and laptops fell nearly 27% to $10.2 billion in fiscal 2023. Unit sales declined 11%, according to Bank of America’s estimate.

Apple shares still managed to jump 49% for the year as of Thursday’s close, topping the Nasdaq’s 44% gain. However, investors were better off betting on any of the other most-valuable tech companies. Nvidia shares more than tripled this year, and Meta climbed almost 200%. Tesla’s stock more than doubled, Amazon rose 83%, Alphabet jumped 59% and Microsoft gained 57%.

In order to return to revenue growth and support its $3 trillion market cap, Apple needs some new products to hit and global demand for smartphones and laptops to recover.

A big test will come early next year, when Apple’s first mixed-reality headset — the $3,499 Vision Pro — hits the market.

“We believe success with the Vision Pro is less about 2024 and more about its longer-term potential,” Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a note this month.

Assuming Apple ships 400,000 headsets, Vision Pro revenue could be about $1.4 billion next year, according to an estimate from UBS analyst David Vogt. He called the sum “relatively immaterial.”

Enthusiasm will be the key. The Vision Pro is Apple’s first completely new device since it announced the Apple Watch, and it will be sold through Apple stores. The headset could generate foot traffic and buzz for Apple’s existing products. And there’s a chance that it catches on enough to show that Apple has the lead when it comes to the future of computing.

Some problems are fixable

Looking overseas, Apple would like to see an easing of tensions between the U.S. and China.

In 2023, Apple made significant progress diversifying its centers of production away from mainland China and into countries like Vietnam and India. But its moves to expand its supply chain appear to have awakened an impulse in the Chinese government to classify Apple as a foreign company. The White House called reports that Chinese government agencies told their employees not to bring iPhones to work “retaliation.”

The Chinese government has denied them. Yet analysts are starting to worry that Chinese demand for iPhones, especially in the current quarter, is flagging. The iPhone remains Apple’s most important hardware product, accounting for about half of total company revenue.

“Heading into the holiday season, iPhone unit demand remains the key near-term debate amidst macro woes and concerns around potential share loss in China on the resurgence of Huawei,” Citi analyst Atif Malik wrote in a note this month.

Despite its struggles, Apple remains a juggernaut. The company recorded $383 billion in total revenue in fiscal 2023 and earned nearly $97 billion in net income.

Because the smartphone and PC markets were in retreat, Apple gained market share in some countries, where rivals saw steeper declines. In February, Apple said it had 2 billion devices in use, a closely watched metric that investors see as a predictor of future sales from software and services.

Apple is preparing new iPads for next year, which could boost demand, according to Bloomberg. The company has submitted a software update for its watches to the U.S. government that it hopes will clear up the intellectual property dispute that briefly banned sales. IPhones still have a speed advantage over Huawei’s new devices, partially thanks to import restrictions on chips and chip equipment.

In November, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said the company’s December quarter — its biggest of the year — will be flat compared with last year. He warned that Macs, Wearables and iPads would see a sales drop.

But according to analyst estimates, the total sales declines are in the rearview mirror, with mild growth expected in the first half of the year and acceleration after that.

“Overall, the downturn appears to be over, and we believe it is time to see mild growth,” Bank of America analyst Simon Woo wrote in a report this month.

WATCH: Apple’s Vision Pro is not expected to be mainstream hit

Apple's Vision Pro is not expected to be the mainstream hit, says WSJ's Joanna Stern

Technology

Intel in talks with other large investors for equity boost at discount, sources say

Published

2 hours ago

August 20, 2025

admin

Intel in talks with other large investors for equity boost at discount, sources say

Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan speaks at the company’s Annual Manufacturing Technology Conference in San Jose, California, U.S. April 29, 2025.

Laure Andrillon | Reuters

Intel is in talks with other large investors to receive an equity infusion at a discounted price, people familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.

Intel stock slid more than 7% on Tuesday, after rallying earlier this week on a $2 billion capital injection from SoftBank and reports that the Trump administration is weighing different ways to get involved with the company.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Tuesday that the U.S. government must receive an equity stake in Intel in exchange for CHIPS Act funds.

Sources told Faber that the chipmaker is now looking beyond SoftBank for an equity boost.

“They need money to build whatever it is that the customers may actually, ultimately want,” Faber said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “And having the CHIPS Act money, which is free, so to speak, no strings attached, become equity is not helpful to them because it’s dilutive.”

Nvidia, Bill Gates-backed robotics startup Field AI hits $2 billion valuation after recent raise

Published

2 hours ago

August 20, 2025

admin

Nvidia, Bill Gates-backed robotics startup Field AI hits billion valuation after recent raise

A FieldAI robot.

Courtesy: FieldAI

Bill Gates-backed Robotics startup Field AI has raised $405 million in two funding rounds, with investments from Nvidia‘s venture capital arm and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos‘ family office.

The funding comes during an “aha moment,” founder and CEO Ali Agha told CNBC, as software and hardware reach an inflection point.

“We are growing,” he said. “This funding announcement is to respond to the customer demand.”

The latest round values the two-year-old startup at $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified to discuss financial information.

Along with NVentures and Bezos Expeditions, the rounds included investments from Khosla Ventures, Temasek, Canaan Partners and Intel Capital. Samsung and Gates Frontier, the Microsoft founder’s investment fund, previously invested in the company.

Epic touts new AI tools for patients and doctors at company’s annual meeting

Published

6 hours ago

August 20, 2025

admin

Epic touts new AI tools for patients and doctors at company's annual meeting

Visitors attend UGM 2025.

Courtesy of Epic

Space travelers, robots and, of course, artificial intelligence.

They were all on display on Tuesday at Epic Systems‘ annual Users Group Meeting, held at the health software giant’s 1,670-acre campus in Verona, Wisconsin.

Judy Faulkner, Epic’s 82-year-old CEO, dressed for the occasion in a purple wig with neon green shoes and an iridescent vest, reminiscent of the fictional character Buzz Lightyear from the “Toy Story” franchise.

At the science fiction-themed event, Faulkner told the crowd that Epic has roughly 200 different AI features in development that aim to assist patients, clinicians and insurers.

“We are combining the intelligence and curiosity of the human being with the investigative capabilities of gen AI,” Faulkner said, in front of thousands of health-care executives packed into an 11,400-seat underground auditorium.

Epic, one of the largest private technology companies in the country, is best known for its electronic health record, or EHR, software. An EHR is a digital version of a patient’s medical history that’s updated by doctors and nurses, and the technology is integral to the modern U.S. health-care system.

Epic’s software, which competes with Oracle Health (formerly Cerner), is used by 280 million Americans, according to the company. Many patients know of Epic because of its user portal called MyChart.

Last week, Epic announced MyChart Central, which will allow patients to log in to MyChart with just one set of credentials, rather than needing a username and password for each health system they visit. It’s equally helpful for health-care organizations, Faulkner said.

“You’ll spend less time handling patient calls and resetting passwords,” she said in her keynote on Tuesday. “Demographic changes like address need to be added only once.”

A new addition to the MyChart portal is the always-on Emmie assistant, which the company said will be able to answer questions about lab results, propose appointment times and suggest relevant screenings that patients can discuss with their doctor.

During Epic’s three-hour presentation, Faulkner and other executives introduced Emmie as well as other AI assistants the company calls Art and Penny, highlighting new capabilities that are coming in the next year and beyond.

Health-care executives attend UGM 2025.

Courtesy of Epic

The Art assistant is intended for clinicians, and is meant to act as an active AI digital colleague, the company said. Art will be able to anticipate information that a doctor might need, for instance, and can pull up information like blood pressure trends, update a patient’s family history and place orders.

The company also said Art will be able to draft clinical notes, which was one of the most highly anticipated announcements ahead of the conference. AI-powered clinical documentation tools, which are often called AI scribes, can take notes on patient visits in real time as doctors record their encounters, with a patient’s consent.

AI scribes have exploded in popularity as health-care executives search for solutions to help reduce staff burnout and daunting administrative workloads. Some startups in the space, including Abridge and Ambience Healthcare, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.

Epic said its AI charting tool is being built in collaboration with Microsoft. Epic and Microsoft have been working closely together for roughly two decades, and Microsoft’s DAX Copilot product is already a popular offering within the AI scribing market.

“We’re proud to be collaborating with Epic to explore how we can bring our core Dragon ambient AI technology to Epic’s new AI Charting capability to further improve care delivery,” Joe Petro, corporate vice president of Microsoft Health & Life Sciences said in a statement.

Epic’s Penny assistant is designed to help with revenue cycle management and other administrative needs, such as generating appeal letters for insurance claims that get denied. It can also help speed up medical coding by serving up suggestions, Faulkner said. Those two features are already live.

“With all the challenges health-care organizations are facing, we need to make sure our clinicians and our organizations are strong and doing well in order to be able to take care of patients,” Faulkner said.

Epic closed out its executive address by teasing new AI capabilities that are coming to Cosmos, which is a deidentified patient dataset clinicians can use to conduct research. Health systems have to opt-in to participate in Cosmos, and the database currently includes information from more than 1,760 hospitals and 300 million patients.

Epic said it’s building a set of proprietary foundation models, called Cosmos AI, based on this data. The company is still evaluating different applications of the models, and launched the Cosmos AI Lab to help researchers and data scientists learn more.

Executives said the models could be used to predict a timeline of a patient’s potential medical events, like whether they’re a readmission risk or could eventually experience a heart attack.

“We’re finding that it continues to improve as it sees more patients,” said Seth Hain, a senior vice president of research and development at Epic. “Having only used 8 billion encounters so far, we’re just getting started.”

WATCH: The health care sector was overdue for a bounce