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Apple plans to slow growth in hiring and spending in some divisions in 2023. At the end of 2021, the American group employed 154,000 employees worldwide, up nearly 5% year-on-year.
© Getty — Justin Sullivan
After a period of euphoria during the pandemic, the technological giants are reducing their sails to face an uncertain economic climate, against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, galloping inflation and a lingering global shortage of electronic components. In this context, Meta and Amazon had already decided to slow down their rate of recruitment. Now it’s Apple’s turn to follow suit.
Indeed, the Cupertino company plans to revise downwards hiring and spending in certain divisions in 2023, according to Bloomberg. The move is a precautionary move to prepare for a possible economic downturn, although it is not a true company-wide policy, according to sources close to the government. file quoted by the American press agency. At the end of 2021, Apple had 154,000 people in its workforce, up nearly 5% year-on-year.
Bloomberg specifies that the changes made in this context will not affect all teams, while Apple maintains “an aggressive product launch schedule in 2023”. Next year should be marked, among other things, by the presentation of a mixed reality headset, which will inaugurate its first major new product category since 2015 and the launch of the Apple Watch on the connected watch market.
Slower growth at the start of the year
The time is far from panic in the ranks of the apple brand, which achieved a turnover of 97.3 billion dollars between January and March, up 9% over one year. But if the American giant’s revenues are still on the rise, it is the first time since the last fiscal quarter of 2020 that it has posted single-digit quarterly growth.
The report should not be more positive at the end of the financial results of Apple for the period from April to June. And for good reason, the Californian group has suffered from the “zero Covid” strategy of the Chinese authorities: the drastic confinements experienced by several large cities in the country have led to the closure of key factories for the electronics industry. A situation that has aggravated supply problems and therefore the production of certain Apple products, such as the iPhone 13 and soon the iPhone 14. The American firm estimated that these difficulties could cost it between 4 and $8 billion over the April-June period. To reduce its dependence on China, Apple, which manufactures more than 90% of its products there, is considering reviewing its industrial organization by focusing on India and Vietnam.
Apple Pay, a new pebble in the shoes of the American giant
In this context, Apple preferred prevention than cure. Especially since it is increasingly criticized for its practices concerning its mobile payment system, Apple Pay. At the beginning of May, the European Commission slapped the fingers of the American group for its somewhat too restrictive use of its NFC chip and its Apple Pay payment system. Brussels believes that the Apple brand hinders competition by preventing third-party developers from accessing the NFC chip of its iPhones. Thus, it is impossible for other companies to offer their own contactless payment functionality directly to their users on iOS.
In this way, Apple rules out any competition in the mobile payment market. Also in this context, Apple Pay is also the subject of a complaint in the United States, filed by Affinity Credit Union, an American company that issues debit and credit cards compatible with Apple Pay. This considers that the Cupertino company holds an illegal monopoly on contactless payments on the iPhone, which allows it to force card issuers to pay fees. Affinity Credit Union attorneys hope to turn this lawsuit into a class action lawsuit to have several card issuers sue Apple. Bad news for the North American giant, already accused of exercising a dominant position via the App Store. The icing on the cake, the employees of an Apple Store, in the suburbs of Baltimore, on the east coast of the United States, overwhelmingly voted for the creation of a union in order to make their voices heard better against their employer. . A historic first that adds to the many clouds that are gathering over Apple.