Despite Strong Holiday Results, Apple Still Loses Ground In China
Despite cutbacks in iPhone production and demand, Apple has gone on to bounce back and deliver a record quarterly revenue of $78.4 billion to shareholders.
Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company “sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac, and Apple Watch.”
He adds that “revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”
However, one area that Apple failed to grow was its in-roads into the Chinese market. Once-thought to be the next big step for the company’s growth, it has now slipped 12% in year-on-year revenue.
The North American market still accounts for the bulk of the company’s revenue.
Boosted by the Christmas season, Apple’s individual product sales grew across the board. They shipped 78 million iPhones,13 million iPads and just over 5 million Macs.
Though these are definite improvements on the disappointing results of the previous quarter, the company’s iPad problem continues to grow. Compared the previous holiday season, iPad sales shrunk by almost 20%.
Revenue from Apple’s Services division continued to grow (to the sum of 12%), bringing in $7 million in revenue.
There was also a notable jump of 70% for revenue generated by Apple’s accessory line-up, likely driven by holiday demand for AirPods and the company’s Apple Watch.
The company still continues to refuse to break out strict sales and revenue numbers for the smartwatch so it’s difficult to know how it compares to other players in the market.
When it comes to the next quarter, Apple is expecting revenue to fall back to to non-holiday levels and bring in between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion.