Apple’s recently released quarterly results have been surprisingly positive. Due to the weak sales of the new iPhone models, which are sold much worse especially in the important Chinese market, the majority of investors assumed weak quarterly figures. However, other business areas have been able to compensate for the declining sales of the smartphone division and helped Apple to make a profit of 20 billion dollars in the Christmas business.
In the Christmas quarter of 2018, Apple achieved a total turnover of 84.3 billion dollars. This is about five percent less than in the prior-year quarter. Apple cites the decline in iPhone sales in China as the main reason.
Profit equal despite sales decline
Despite the drop in sales, the profit is almost at the level of the stronger quarter of the previous year, as the Group announced on Tuesday after the close of trading in the US. This is due to the higher average price of the new iPhone generation, which enables a significantly higher profit per unit sold.
For the first time, Apple did not report the sales figures otherwise also published this quarter. Instead, the company merely published which business unit achieved how much revenue in which region. In China, sales fell from $17.96 billion in the prior-year quarter to $13.17 billion.
Conversion into a service company
Apple’s biggest growth was in services, where Apple generated $10.9 billion in iCloud, Apple Music, and App sales. This corresponds to growth of 19 percent compared with the same quarter of the previous year. Sales of iPads also rose by 17 percent to 6.7 billion dollars due to the expensive iPad Pro models.
Sales of the Apple Homepad, Apple Watch and other devices such as Airpods also grew by 33 percent to 7.3 billion dollars. The turnover of the original main business of the group, the sale of Macs has increased by eight percent.
Tim Cook commented positively on the quarterly figures. According to him, it is disappointing that the sales targets for the Christmas quarter could not be achieved, but the positive result nevertheless shows the breadth of Apple’s business. Originally expected were instead of the reached 83.4 93 billion dollars.
In response to the publication of the results, Apple’s share price rose by four percent.
