Apple’s Q3 2023 Results
Apple (transcript, Hacker News, MacRumors):
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $81.8 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.26, up 5 percent year over year.
“We are happy to report that we had an all-time revenue record in Services during the June quarter, driven by over 1 billion paid subscriptions, and we saw continued strength in emerging markets thanks to robust sales of iPhone,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
The three key hardware categories were all down year-over-year: Mac was down 7%, iPad was down 20%, and the all-important iPhone was down 2%. Things were a little different in the two portions of Apple’s business that have shown indefatigable growth in recent years: Services revenue was up 8% and the Wearables, Home, and Accessories category was up 2%.
Previously:
Update (2023-08-11): Benjamin Mayo:
But that’s about all Apple will tell us as to the performance of Services. It hasn’t reported Apple Music subscriber numbers since 2019, nor has it ever given hard figures about the performance of Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, News, iCloud, or Apple One in general. A billion subscribers is a huge headline figure, but it obscures the real story of what most people think of when you say ‘Apple services’. Services includes the App Store, and so a majority of that 1 billion total includes In-App Purchase subscriptions from third-party apps in the App Store. Although we never know for sure because Apple won’t tell us, it follows that the majority of Services revenue growth hails from the 15-30% commission Apple collects on those in-app purchase transactions.
If I was a financial investor, I would be growing increasingly dissatisfied with the murkiness of the Services business. For Apple’s flagship growth unit, it’s really hard to get a read on its performance. The golden goose of Apple’s stronghold on the App Store is constantly under threat from regulation, but we can’t measure the potential impact on Services revenue. The success of Apple’s content services are a hedge against the risk of App Store commission drying up, but we don’t know anything about the state of those offerings — we can’t even say for sure they are successful.
