The number of active devices has been disclosed for the first time by Apple as it had previously only disclosed the number of iOS devices sold.
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Apple has shipped more than a billion devices in the past: the company sold its billionth iOS device back in November 2014.
Though the company continued to be extremely profitable during the December quarter, with record net income of $18.4 billion through sales of $75.9 billion in the December quarter, Apple’s advantage from the accelerated adoption of smartphones across the globe is reducing.
Meanwhiles, investors not only worry about a slowdown in iPhone sales, but whether Apple can pull off similar magic with a new consumer device.
It was also a huge drop when compared to the 46 per cent growth in sales reported for the same quarter, last year.
Analysts, technology blogs and company watchers say the iPhone 7 could include waterproofing, wireless headphones and use its new force touch technology to kill off the home button. However, sales were still down from 21.4 million in 2015. In total, revenue was $75.9 billion, up 1.7 percent from a year ago, and lower than Wall Street forecasts of $76.6 billion.
“Our team delivered Apple’s biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world’s most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV”, chief executive Tim Cook said in an earnings release.
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Some observers believed market saturation in developed markets and slowing demand in China, which had boosted recent figures considerably, would see the first ever fall in iPhone sales during the first quarter. “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”. That’s a very slight increase – essentially a flatline – which is leading some analysts to claim the end of the iPhone growth era. The company gave a revenue guidance of about $50 billion to $53 billion for the current period, down from the previous year’s revenue of $58 billion. The watch launched in the third quarter of Apple’s fiscal 2015, when the “other products” segment had $2.6 billion in revenue.
