Apple sells 78m iPhones in quarter, record revenue in tow

Apple didn’t have the greatest fourth quarter results last year, but the new iPhone has done massive business for the brand.

“The company posted all-time record quarterly revenue of $78.4-billion and all-time record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.36. These results compare to revenue of $75.9-billion and earnings per diluted share of $3.28 in the year-ago quarter,” read an excerpt of the Q1 fiscal year earnings report.

The firm added that 64% of their revenue came from international markets.

“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, in the report.

“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.”

Top earners? Big losers?

As for a sales breakdown, iPhones ruled the roost once again, seeing a 5% year-on-year increase in both revenue (US$54.3-billion) and units (78 million devices) sold. Apple also reported US$7.1-billion in revenue from services for the quarter, representing a year-on-year increase of 18%.

Sales of Mac computers were only slightly up from Q1 2016 (from 5.31 million to 5.37 million units sold), with revenue up 7% in this regard.

Tablet sales maintain their downward slide for Apple, with the likes of the iPad Pro not doing much, it would seem

The big loser continues to be the iPad, as units sold and revenue earned dropped 19% and 22% respectively. In other words, iPad sales dropped from 16.1 million units sold in Q1 2016 to 13 million in Q1 2017.

Interestingly enough, the “other products” field (including Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, iPods etc) reported a drop in revenue too. The sector earned US$4.3-billion in revenue for Q1 2016, but saw revenue dropping to US$4-billion in Q1 2017.

Thanks to reader Simon Gillespie for pointing out that the headline is supposed to read “record revenue” and not “record profits”.