The Silicon Valley giant admitted that sales of its iPhones had missed expectations after it sold 74.8 million iPhones in the quarter, falling short of the 75.46 million target. “Major markets, including Brazil, Russia, Japan, Canada, south east Asia, Australia, Turkey and the eurozone have been impacted by slowing economic growth, falling commodity prices and weakening currencies”.
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This is the highest ever profit ever recorded by a public company for a single quarter, beating the also record-breaking $18bn in profit Apple reported for Q1 2015.
“Our team delivered Apple’s biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world’s most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhones, Apple Watches and Apple TV”, Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said in a statement. Net profit for the company grew to $18.4 billion, over the previous year’s $18 billion net. The company, like many others in the US, blamed a stronger dollar for keeping its revenue roughly flat.
Sales of the iPhone are crucial to Apple. The iPhone may still dominate Apple’s overall business – it accounted for 68 percent of revenue in Apple’s first quarter – and with the so-called iPhone 7 likely to launch later this year, it will continue to be the point on which Apple pivots.
Speculation that the second quarter of Apple’s financial year will see a decrease in iPhone shipments will now intensify.
Apple reported sales of 74.8 million iPhones during the quarter – up less than 1 percent from the same time one year ago. Meanwhile, the smartphone market is already flattening in more mature markets such as the US and Western Europe.
There were no new figures – or even discussion – for Apple Music, beyond the 10 million subscribers number announced earlier this year. For the coming quarter, Apple projected revenues between $50 billion and $53 billion, down from the $58 billion it made in the first three months of 2015.
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With the growth slowing in iPhone sales, analysts expect sales of units of the smartphone to enter negative territory for just the first time later in 2016 due in part because of rumors from the supply chain of Apple of reduced orders for the iPhone 6S.
