Apple Considered Replacing 5,000 AppleCare Staff With AI as Efficiency Drive Looms

Yahoo Finance ·

Apple seriously evaluated laying off 5,000 remote AppleCare workers around July to substitute them with artificial intelligence, although the initiative is currently on hold, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. CEO John Ternus is aggressively targeting internal costs and efficiency, having recently cut dozens of hardware engineering program managers, with further reductions anticipated. Despite these moves, Apple's financial standing remains remarkably robust. The operating margin climbed to 32.0% in fiscal 2025, up from 29.8% in fiscal 2021, while free cash flow reached $98.8 billion in fiscal 2025. Consequently, these structural adjustments serve more as strategic signals than financial necessities. Wall Street analysts project that normalized EPS will climb from $7.46 in fiscal 2025 to $10.82 by fiscal 2028, with potential broader workforce trims providing additional upward momentum to these already strong growth expectations for AAPL.

AI 시장 분석

According to Bloomberg reports, Apple is seriously considering replacing 5,000 AppleCare remote support personnel with AI and is pursuing additional restructuring in its hardware engineering division. This cost-reduction and efficiency-driven strategy is expected to accelerate future earnings per share (EPS) growth, supported by Apple's robust financial structure where the operating margin rose from 29.8% in 2021 to 32.0% in 2025. Investors are focusing on the direction of management efficiency rather than large-scale layoffs and should keep an eye on the AI-driven cost-reduction trends of big tech companies going forward.

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DYAX 전담 분석

Apple's latest workforce efficiency attempt represents a strategic shift to go beyond simple cost cutting and actively introduce AI technology into actual internal operations to maximize profitability. The restructuring signal, coming at a time when the company holds massive free cash flow reaching 98.8 billion dollars as of 2025, will positively affect long-term shareholder value enhancement and EPS growth projections.

In the bullish scenario, the improvement of the cost structure through AI adoption leads to actual margin expansion, accelerating the achievement of the target EPS of 10.82 dollars. In the bearish scenario, combined with sluggishness in new business sectors like Vision Pro, fatigue from internal organizational reorganization may increase, requiring close monitoring of future hiring and cost-reduction paces.

AI가 생성한 분석으로 투자 자문이 아닙니다.

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