By Rashika Singh and Kanishka Ajmera
July 31 (Reuters) - Apple shares dropped 7.3% before the bell on Friday as the tech giant warned that supply constraints would hurt growth, prompting investors to look beyond near-term shortages to gauge the hit from an expected iPhone price hike.
The decline puts Apple on track to shed roughly $361.6 billion in market value, if the losses hold.
The company's outlook highlighted a broader industry challenge, with AI-driven demand tightening supplies of advanced chips
and memory, driving up costs and prolonging supply-chain bottlenecks across the technology sector.
Apple said on Thursday that shortages of advanced chipmaking capacity were limiting supplies of iPhones, Macs and some iPads, with Chief Executive Tim Cook saying supply constraints, rather than weak demand, was driving the softer outlook.
Cook will vacate the top job at the tech firm for John Ternus at the start of September, capping a leadership era that helped build Apple into the world's most valuable company and a top-performing member of the "Magnificent Seven".
"Demand robustness is running into a wall of supply and cost challenges," J.P. Morgan analysts led by Samik Chatterjee said, adding that supply constraints were likely to defer sales rather than destroy them, with revenue expected to be realized in future quarters.
Apple forecast 9% to 11% revenue growth for the current quarter, below Wall Street expectations of about 12%, while projecting mid-teens percentage growth in iPhone revenue that also lagged analyst estimates.
iPhone sales in the June quarter rose 21.7% to $54.25 billion, above estimates of $53.86 billion and marking the best-ever iPhone sales for the third quarter.
Apple is widely expected to raise iPhone prices later this year, but investors are increasingly focused on whether it can raise them without denting demand.
TD Cowen analysts said the upcoming iPhone cycle, AI-powered Siri features and Apple's upgrade program could allow the company to increase prices "without significant demand destruction."
(Reporting by Rashika Singh and Kanishka Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
