Today Apple will announce its financial results for Q2 2022 with record-breaking numbers expected to be reported. And the EU continues to have Apple in its sights but this time for Pay, accusing it of being anticompetitive.
Anticipated Q2 Results
Analysts have published their forecasts for the March quarter and are predicting record revenues for Apple.
The consensus seems to be that Apple will post $93.89 billion in revenue which would indeed be record-breaking. The primary revenue drivers are expected to be iPhone, Mac, Services and wearable devices. Growth in iPad is expected to be more muted if not flat. If Apple reached the higher end of analysts’ predictions, that’ll likely be good news for the stock. Though as always there will be questions about iPhone revenues. It’ll also be interesting to see if analysts ask questions about the wide-ranging regulation that the EU plans to impose on Apple in the near future. Speaking of….
EU wants access to the iPhone’s NFC chip
According to the financial times, the EU plans to accuse Apple of behaving unlawfully by preventing third-party services from accessing the iPhone’s NFC chip. The report suggests that the EU takes issue with this as it prevents alternative service providers, such as leading banks and firms such as PayPal, from using the tech in their own payment platforms.
Other providers are unable to offer a payment experience similar to Apple Pay on the iPhone due to this limitation. Instead, some opt to use systems such as QR codes. Apple for its part has stated that it does not allow access to the NFC chip for privacy and security reasons. The NFC radio on iPhone is tied to the secure element which contains customer credit and debit card information. Apple has cited arguments around protecting this data in the past and may use similar arguments to re-buff the EU when/if the legal challenge is served.