Memo to retailers: iPhones and profit margins don’t mix.
RadioShack shocked investors yesterday with an unexpected quarterly loss that sent its shares to an all-time low — and the company blamed its short-circuited margins on Apple’s iPhone.
Shares of the struggling electronics chain tumbled 29 percent to close at $2.60 — their lowest level in more than three decades on the stock market.
Immediately, fresh questions about RadioShack’s future surfaced.
“The iPhone is a huge, huge part of the problem,” according to Anthony Chukumba, an analyst at BB&T Capital Markets, who in March slashed his profit forecasts for Radioshack on iPhone-related concerns.
On the positive side, iPhones are luring more shoppers to RadioShack outlets, which have been losing customers to fast-growing competitors like Amazon.
But iPhones also carry skimpy margins compared to other, less popular smartphones, Chukumba told The Post.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based chain’s gross margin on a Motorola Droid RAZR phone, for example, is about 33 percent, while its margin on a BlackBerry Bold is about 40 percent, according to BB&T.
The iPhone, however, carries a gross margin of just 14 percent, as the retailer, as well as wireless carriers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, are forced by Apple to subsidize the purchase price.
Second-quarter gross margins got squeezed to 37.8 percent — a heart-stopping drop from 45.9 percent a year ago.
RadioShack suspended its dividend after 25 years as it looks to refinance its debt.
In a conference call with analysts yesterday, CEO Jim Gooch said the chain will carry the new iPhone slated for launch this fall. Margin pressures will likewise continue, Gooch admitted.
RadioShack lost $21 million, or 21 cents a share, in the second quarter, compared with net income of $24.9 million or 24 cents a share, a year earlier.
Sales rose 1.2 percent to $953.2 million, but missed Wall Street’s forecast of $970.4 million.