After several quarters of top-line revenue stagnation, Apple rebounded in the holiday quarter by returning to growth and posting their best financial results ever. That is a statement in and of itself. Apple has posted some pretty spectacular numbers but this was the best. Apple reported revenue of $78.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $17.9 billion, or $3.36 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $75.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $18.4 billion, or $3.28 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Both revenue and earnings per share were company records.
The so-called expert analysts were calling for sales of $77.4 billion and $3.23 per share profit so Apple handily crushed the street.
To put this is some context, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes calculated that Apple sold 798,877 iPhones a day during the 98 days of the quarter. That is 33,286 each hour or 554 per minute or 9 iPhones each second. All at an average sales price of $695. He also calculated that amounts to about 39,000 metric tons of iPhones. At 100 metric tons per FedEx flight that’s about 400 flights.
That’s just iPhone. Apple Services, Mac and Watch businesses all posted all-time record sales. The App store saw $3 Billion in sales in December, alone! Apple Pay users tripled and Apple saw hundreds of millions of Apple Pay transactions in December.
Mac sales also were very strong with 5.4 million Macs sold this holiday quarter and $7.2 billion in revenue, despite widespread shortages of the new MacBook Pro Touch Bar models. The only negative part of their results was a continued decline in iPad sales at 13.1 million units. I think the iPad is a bit different in terms of the upgrade cycle than an iPhone, hence the softness. I know I don’t trade my iPad often but always want the latest iPhone.
Apple’s cash stash was $246.09 billion which if that was its own public company would be the 13th largest in the world. With the new administration in Washington, repatriating that cash might be a reality this year.
“We’re thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”
The greatest story in business history continues with these phenomenal results. Congratulations to Tim Cook and the entire Apple team.