Apple Breaks iOS Device Sales Records, but Fails to Wow Investors
Apple broke its previous quarterly records of iPhone and iPad sales during the recently closed quarter, but made no gains in net income.
Apple broke its previous quarterly records of iPhone and iPad sales during the recently closed quarter, but made no gains in net income.
Apple broke its previous quarterly records of iPhone and iPad sales during the recently closed quarter, but made no gains in net income from the year-ago period. As a consequence, Wall Street is taking a mostly negative view of the company’s latest results, sending stock down at least 7 percent.
The Cupertino, California-based corporation, banked $13.1 billion in net profit on $57.6 billion in revenue in the last quarter. Apple sold 51 million iPhones, 26 million iPads, and 4.8 million Macs, marking a 6 percent year-over-year jump in iPhone sales, nearly a 12 percent jump in iPad sales, and almost a 15 percent increase in Mac sales.
While revenue and the number of all iOS and Mac units sold continued to grow in the quarter, the company is no longer experiencing the astonishing growth rates of recent years past.
Chief executive Tim Cook reiterated his and Apple’s commitment to introduce products in new categories sometime this year, but provided no further clues or details as to when or what Apple has up its sleeve. “Innovation is deeply embedded in everybody here, and there’s still so much of the world that is full of very complex products,” he tells analysts on yesterday’s earnings call.
“We have zero issue coming up with things that we want to do that we think we can disrupt in a major way. The challenge is always to focus on the very few that deserve all of our energy,” he adds.
Cook and chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer once again detailed Apple’s ongoing success in enterprise markets. Accenture, Cisco, Deloitte, GE, and American Airlines were recognized for having equipped tens of thousands of employees with iPhones for work. Citing the latest data from IDC, Oppenheimer says iPhone has a 59 percent share of the U.S. commercial smartphone market (combining business, government, and education institutions). The same research firm pegs iPad’s share of the U.S. commercial tablet market at 78 percent.
“It’s clear that the enterprise area has huge potential, and we’re doing well from a percentage of companies that are using iPhone and iPad. It’s up to unbelievable numbers. The iPhone is used in 97 percent of the Fortune 500, and 91 percent of the Global 500, and iPad is used in 98 percent of the Fortune 500 and 93 percent of the Global 500,” says Cook.
“I think the road in enterprise is a longer one. The arc is longer than in consumer,” he adds. “I think we’ve done a lot of the groundwork as you can tell from these numbers that I’ve given you, and I would expect that it would have more and more payback in the future.”
Apple, which recently celebrated the 30-year anniversary of the Mac, began 2014 with 80 percent of all iOS devices running on iOS 7 and the company’s board of directors declared a cash dividend of $3.05 per share.