Apple’s Q2 2024 Results
Apple (transcript, Hacker News, MacRumors):
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $90.8 billion, down 4 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.53.
“Today Apple is reporting revenue of $90.8 billion for the March quarter, including an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
[…]
“Given our confidence in Apple’s future and the value we see in our stock, our Board has authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases. We are also raising our quarterly dividend for the twelfth year in a row.”
The company booked $90.8 billion in revenue (down 4% versus the year-ago quarter) with $23.6 billion in profit. Mac revenue was up 4%, presumably buoyed by the release of the M3 MacBook Air. iPad revenue crashed down to $5.6 billion, a 17% drop from the year-ago quarter and the weakest iPad quarter in four years. iPhone revenue was $46 billion, down 10% versus the year-ago quarter.
Services revenue was the big highlight for Apple this quarter, with a new record $23.9 billion in revenue, up 14% year over year. The Wearables, Home, and Accessories category managed only $7.9 billion in revenue, down 10% versus the year-ago quarter.
Artificial intelligence was mentioned many times, and as Ryan Jones notes, Apple even suggested that the M3 MacBook Air is selling well because of its “incredible AI performance.”
Tim Cook’s decade-ago decision to focus both the company and investors’ attention on Services looks ever more prescient. As it stands, a 4 percent overall drop in revenue makes for an ever-so-slightly bad quarter. If not for Services growth, however, this would’ve been a not-so-slightly bad quarter.
Maybe it was a good business decision. I still think the focus on services has not been good for the products.
It’s somewhat interesting to me that those are the two iPhone models: on the consumer side, the smaller-display iPhone 15; on the pro side, the big-display iPhone 15 Pro Max. The cheapest iPhone 15 model and the most expensive one.
Previously:
- MacBook Air 2024
- Apple’s Q1 2024 Results
- Apple Vision Pro Reviews
- Apple’s Q2 2023 Results
- Priorities
Update (2024-05-07): Michael E. Cohen and Adam Engst:
Apple’s regional results were a mixed bag, with some regions—the Americas and Europe—providing generally steady or growing revenues, while others—Greater China, Japan, and the rest of Asia Pacific—showing declines. The declines may be less related to Apple’s products than to regional economic conce
It’s interesting that Cook calls out generative AI, which is basically the sort of stuff that Apple hasn’t spent the last few years rolling out inside its various products. He acknowledges that they’ve been investing in this technology and once again touts that Apple will share things soon.
[…]
There was one claim that made me laugh out loud during the call, though. Apple CFO Luca Maestri said, as a part of his prepared remarks, that “customers are loving the incredible AI performance of the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models.” Are they, really? I knew some apps have AI features, but the idea that M3 MacBook Air users are just buzzing over how incredible the AI performance they’re getting is… just seems silly. This is the place where Apple’s product marketing hype machine collides with its investor community hype machine and generates something… not optimal.
[…]
Sometimes, it seems like Apple has almost saturated demand for its products, which leads to slower growth (for everything except the Services category, apparently). So, where would growth ever come from? This answer focuses on it: There’s a big portion of the world where Apple’s market share is quite low, but populations are growing and income levels are rising. Apple’s growth story for the next couple of decades may have more to do with India, Brazil, and Indonesia than with Europe or the United States.
[…]
That’s about as savage a shade-throwing as you’ll get on an Apple analyst call. But to summarize, Rakers asked Cook to respond to third-party estimates on Apple’s sales, and Cook essentially pointed at his legally mandated financial statements and declared them the real numbers.
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> "incredible AI performance"
Yes, sure. As nobody has a clue where this AI thing is supposed to be implemented in macOS, this is surely the main reason… Maybe they are using AI to compute the size of free space on APFS volumes.
From the PR: "During the quarter, we were thrilled to launch Apple Vision Pro and to show the world the potential that spatial computing unlocks"
Yes, sure, incredible launch and success. Nobody gives a damn about it 2 months later.
I'm wondering why they feel the need for all this B.S. when they have very good financial results after all.
> Maybe it was a good business decision. I still think the focus on services has not been good for the products.
Completely agree, Michael. It's compromised the products, really.
A huge blindspot in John's idea that focusing on services saved their quarter: Seems likely hardware sales went down *because* they've been focusing so much energy on services at the expense of the user experience and creating compelling hardware
Personally, I've started buying my iPhones and Macs used because of the extreme price gouging they're doing on basic upgrades like 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD, plus I don't feel like Apple really respects or values me as a user. They're no longer customer focused and it shows
Right, Max. Completely agree. "They're no longer customer focused and it shows."
That's exactly the feeling one gets.
Or, they simply focus on other customers, of which I do not feel part.
"As nobody has a clue where this AI thing is supposed to be implemented in macOS, this is surely the main reason"
Macs are pretty nice for running smaller models locally. You can do things like replace Copilot with a local model in IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and get reasonable results. It seems at least somewhat plausible that there are people who picked Macs because of this reason, although I doubt they make up a large portion of Apple's sales.
Yes I think that's what's being referred to. I know a guy who bought a to of the line M1 Ultra so that he could do some ML training on his own. Or well, for his client.
Worked well enough to create a POC. But as Plume says it's probably not a huge market, makes for a nice sound bite though.
