The company said that it sold 74.77 million iPhone last quarter, less than analysts’ estimates of 76.54 million units.
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Cook called Apple’s services business “an unbelievable asset” for the company, and noted that Apple now has 1 billion “active” devices in use that can drive services sales.
The results also revealed that Apple sold just over 16 million iPads tablets, as well as 5.3 million Mac computers. Meanwhile, its iPhone sales were mainly flat, with it selling 74.8 million units, a rise of 300,000 units year on year.
However, this was in line with company’s expectations after iPhone sales – the driver of two-thirds of Apple revenue – had peaked and that the company will soon need to find new sources of growth.
While Apple remains enormously profitable by generating a record $18.4 billion in net income on sales of $75.9 billion in the December quarter but it is no longer getting benefitted relatively to other smartphone makers due to lesser demand for its premium products.
During the Q2 2015, it had predicted $58 billion in revenue for the next year but now it has pegged that number to be anywhere between $50 and $53 billion in revenue. “Notwithstanding these outstanding results, we started to see some economic softness in greater China in recent months, most notably in Hong Kong”, Cook said. Meanwhile, Apple’s quarterly profits checked in at $18.4 billion while EPS for the quarter checked in at $3.28, easily besting the consensus on Wall Street.
Once again, Apple has chosen not to unveil sales figures of its Apple Watch, only saying that it has helped drive growth in the quarter. “Even with a new model due this fall, the impact of iPhone growth is tapering over time, and placeholder products like Apple TV and Apple Watch, while growing, aren’t making up for slowing sales of more important products”.
While it is a probably a bit worrying for Apple that they’re not doing as well as in previous years we do find it hard to feel sorry for a company that only made $1 billion more than it did last year.
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The March quarter is likely to be the weakest this year in terms of iPhone sales for the company, which forecast on Tuesday its first quarterly revenue drop in 13 years.
