Apple’s Q1 2018 Results
Today Apple reported its results for the holiday quarter of last year, traditionally the biggest quarter of the year. Three months ago Apple said it expected between $84 and $87 billion in revenue, which would have been a record. They beat their estimates, with $88.3B in revenue, on strong iPhone revenue.
Below, find many charts!
If you see a story that says iPhone sales in the holiday quarter were disappointing, check to see if they mention the number of weeks in the quarter, or if they cite overheated analyst estimates. Because the numbers make it clear that this is a strong validation of Apple’s somewhat risky strategy to restructure the contents of its most popular product line.
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In terms of sheer numbers, Apple sold 850,000 iPhones per day on average during 91 days in late 2017, compared to 798,000 iPhones per day during 98 days in late 2016, meaning that unit sales went “down” by increasing by 6.5 percent.
But look a little deeper: In terms of revenue, the iPhone generated $61.6 billion, compared to $54.4 billion in the year-ago quarter. […] The average selling price of a holiday-quarter iPhone jumped by $100.
Here’s a chart showing the year-year weekly averages[…]
Cook — who repeated the sentiment later in the call — couldn’t have given a more strident example of how every company is best viewed according to the dictates of their business model. If companies are what they measure, then what matters to Apple is the number of devices sold, not the number of users. Indeed, the user is a means to the end of selling a device — and ideally more than one at a time!
Apple’s non-hardware revenue is its own Fortune 100 company, and it makes as much on every one of its 1.3 billion users as Facebook does
iPad remains the world’s most popular tablet by a significant margin, having outsold competing devices from rivals Samsung and Amazon combined last year, according to data shared by research firm IDC today.
Previously: Apple’s Q1 2017 Results.
Update (2018-02-16): Kirk Burgess has a chart that compares Apple’s numbers, ex-iPhone, with Facebook, Microsoft, and Google.
"In terms of revenue, the iPhone generated $61.6 billion, compared to $54.4 billion in the year-ago quarter."
Which is not so good considering how the dollar has become even weaker in one year.