The caveats first: It was a holiday quarter and had 14 weeks rather than the standard 13. Still $78.4 billion in revenue with $17.9 billion profit both set records for Apple, so caveats or not, I think that’s the sound of champaign glasses clinking at the company headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Apple sold 78.3 million iPhones—the iPhone 7+ was the most popular—in the biggest iPhone sales quarter ever. The iPhone now represents 69% of the company’s revenue, so there’s little doubt that Apple will continue to pour its resources into keeping the iPhone the best phone in the world.
There was great news on the Mac front as well with 5.4 million Macs sold, representing 9% of the company’s revenue. iPad sales continued to slide—13.1 million and 7% of revenue—despite stellar reviews and very high customer satisfaction. One hopes that Apple will take this revenue numbers to heart and commit more long-overdue resources to the Mac, because excepting the MacBook Pro line, everything else could use an update.
Services includes iCloud storage, App sales, iTunes Music, Movies, TV Shows, ApplePay, and more. It saw 18% growth and accounted for 9% of revenue. It is likely to be the biggest revenue driver after iPhone within a year. Apple’s stated goal is to double service revenue within 4 years, and we think they’re aiming too low.
Because of the outrageous success of the iPhone, Apple remains in many ways a company whose future is tied to one product. That said, even without the iPhone Apple would be an amazing success story, and I dare say, I think the best, financial and otherwise, is still yet to come.