Tech giant Apple reportedly cuts 100 jobs in its digital services group, with sources citing a shift in internal priorities

Apple has reportedly carried out another tranche of job cuts in one of its divisions, amid an internal reorganisation of priorities at the tech giant.

Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter as its source, reported that Apple is cutting about 100 jobs in its digital services group, which includes some workers for the Apple Books app and Apple Bookstore.

The company informed the affected staff, who worked across several different teams in senior VP Eddy Cue’s services group, on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported.

Job cuts

The layoffs include some engineering roles and other services teams such as the one that runs Apple News, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

There has been no official confirmation from Apple, but if true, this would be its second tranche of layoffs at the tech giant since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Apple in March this year had informed 614 staff in California that it was terminating their positions, from its 161,000 strong global workforce.

Apple at the time did not reveal which departments or projects the axed employees were involved in, but Bloomberg at the time reported that the majority of the cuts were located at the site address that had been working on the abandoned self-driving car project.

Apple had in February 2024 famously cancelled its protracted entry into automotive market with a self-driving electric car (Project Titan).

AI shift

Many Project Titan employees were reportedly transferred to Apple’s artificial intelligence (AI) division.

Apple has been steadily reorganising teams amid shifting corporate priorities, including to artificial intelligence.

Apple had public revealed its AI intentions back in June at its WWDC 2024 developer conference.

Apple is very late to the AI party compared to its competitors, and signed a deal with OpenAI to bring the ChatGPT chatbot to its devices including iPads, iPhones, Vision Pro headsets and Macs.

Apple challenges

Apple has been facing market concerns about falling iPhone sales in one of its core markets, namely China (Apple’s third largest market).

In its latest third quarter results, Apple revealed that overall sales of the Apple iPhone had fallen 0.9 percent to $39.3bn.

Apple sales in China declined 6.5 percent, wider than expectations of a drop of 2.4 percent, in the face of intense competition from cheaper domestic smartphones from the likes of Vivo, Oppo, and Huawei.

Some media outlets have reported that Apple has already suspended work on its next Vision headset, and closed down a project to design and develop its own smartwatch displays.

Apple is expected to launch its latest iPhone 16 smartphone portfolio on Monday 9 September, at its “It’s Glowtime” event.