By Jonathan Keane
Apple has been on a winning streak of late with massive iPhone 6 sales, launching a new Macbook, stepping into the mobile payments market with Apple Pay, and of course releasing its new flagship product, the Apple Watch last week.
This week’s earnings report showed the company had hit record results with sales of the iPhone 6 driving massive figures for Apple, namely $13.6bn in profits. Pretty much everything in terms of revenues and net profits were up, but there’s one figure you really need to know – $194bn in cash, which makes Apple the world’s most valuable company.
Mac sales and the ever-growing App Store were also credited with fuelling this growth.
“We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to the iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles.”
– Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Typically, Apple has strong figures after the release of the latest iteration of the iPhone. The iPhone 6 is a little different though in that it came in two sizes (with the larger iPhone 6 Plus), which scooped up plenty of new customers.
This quarter, the Cupertino tech giant sold a whopping 61m iPhones, 40% more than it did in the same quarter of 2014. This gives you an idea of how in-demand the iPhone 6 truly was on its release.
It’s also important to note that none of these figures include the Apple Watch, which was released officially last week following a pre-ordering frenzy in early April. It’s very early days for the Apple Watch sales so far but Cook said he expects even better results when the next quarter rolls around. “We’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch,” said Cook, with the wearable expected to sell very well.
Apple is also aggressively expanding its business in China. According to this week’s numbers, the company’s China revenue grew over 70% since last year. That makes for more than a quarter of Apple’s overall revenue. It has already conquered the US and Europe where it enjoys strong market share for smartphones and now looks primed to go further into China.
Furthermore, Apple is still plotting its entry into the music streaming business following its acquisitions of Beats and a number of new hires in the field.
On the flipside, iPads aren’t looking too hot anymore, with sales dropping over 20% compared to last year, but sales of tablets in general have been declining for a while. It will be the one disappointment for Apple but still only a blip compared to the rest of the numbers.
With a new larger screen iPhone at the helm, a new Macbook on the way, and the buzz around the Apple Watch, there appears to be little reason for Apple to worry too much about one of its devices falling by the wayside.
