Dubai: Apple, the company with the world’s largest market capitalisation of $651.26 billion (Dh2.392 trillion) as of Tuesday, had its best quarterly earnings in its corporate history as it ramped up production of its big-screened iPhone 6 and 6 Plus faster than any previous model.
The Cupertino, California, company registered revenues of $74.6 billion and net profit of $18 billion in the quarter compared to revenue of $57.6 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion during the same period last year.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said that the revenue growth of 30 per cent in the quarter was incredible, which saw demand for the products soar to an all-time high.
The company posted a year-on-year revenue growth of 70 per cent in China, followed by rest of Asia Pacific with 33 per cent, Americas with 23 per cent and Europe with 20 per cent.
Apple iPhone sales grew 46 per cent year on year to 74.5 million while Macs grew 14 per cent to 5.52 million but iPad sales fell 18 per cent year on year to 21.42 million in the quarter ended December 27.
“We brought more new people to iPhone than ever before. Many of those are switching from Android and it is the highest that the company has seen in at least three years. We couldn’t be happier about that,” Cook said.
All smartphone manufacturers have launched with bigger screen sizes but did not get the attention like Apple got due to its ascetic feel and design of the product.
Nadeem Khanzadah, Head of OmniChannel Retail at Jumbo Electronics, said the premium devices, costing more than $600 each, are the best handset of all times from Apple. It is still very much in demand and has managed to neutralise the advantage of Android competitors.
Macs, which are used by professionals and niche segment, got a boost as Apple started allowing Windows to be installed on a Mac machine, while the fall in iPad sales is due to the market getting saturated and no major technological improvement since 2010.
Khanzadah said that there is no major breakthrough from all the tablet vendors in the tablet space.
There is no “compelling reason” for any user to change the tablet every six months as compared to a smartphone, so the growth rate is going to come down.
According to Nabila Popal, research manager at International Data Corporation, Apple sold 1.7 million iPhones in the MEA in the third quarter.
“Apples shipments and share are both expected to increase significantly across MEA in fourth quarter. Likely shipment increase by 30 per cent and smartphone share increase by about two percentage points in MEA,” she said.
Market feedback shows that despite the increase in shipments and share, the supply of the new iPhones was still “not enough to meet demand” leaving all distributors and retailers out of stock. Many believe the increase in share would have been even higher has supply been sufficient.
Apple posted a year-on-year revenue growth of 70 per cent in China, followed by rest of Asia Pacific with 33 per cent, Americas with 23 per cent and Europe with 20 per cent.
Apple plans to start shipping Apple Watch in April. Cook didn’t provide more details but said that watch development is progressing on schedule.
Apple expects its revenue to be between $52 billion and $55 billion and operating expenses to be between $5.4 billion and $5.5 billion in the second quarter.
Apple shares closed down 3.50 per cent to $109.14 on Tuesday.
