Apple closed its earnings call this afternoon after announcing an unprecedented 74.5 million iPhone sales to go along with $74.6 billion in revenue and $18 billion in profits. It broke the record for the most money made by a corporation in history.
While breaking down the Q1 2015 numbers, Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri also gave us some juicy details about what’s in store for 2015 by hinting at new products in the pipeline, as well as subtly dropping the Apple Watch’s release date.
We’ve combed through the numbers and the conference call and found seven huge new revelations every Apple fan needs to know:
Apple Watch ships in April
Get your wallets ready. Tim Cook finally revealed that Apple Watch will ship in April, and that the company is still “making great progress in the development of it.” Pricing for the Apple Watch and Apple Watch Edition weren’t mentioned, but we expect there will be a media event in March to go over all the details.
2015 is the year of Apple Pay
Apple Pay has only been around for a couple months, but it’s already making a huge impact in the mobile payments space. Whole Foods says it’s seen Apple Pay increase contactless payments by 400 percent. Among Visa, Mastercard and American Express, Apple Pay now accounts for two out of every three dollars spent on contactless payment terminals.
“We haven’t even completed the first inning yet,” Cook said. “There’s tons of countries to go to. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t get a note from businesses and banks wanting Apple Pay. We still have a lot of merchants left in the U.S. Given that we launched in October, I’m positively shocked how many merchants were able to implement Apple Pay in the heart of their shopping season…. We give them a lot of credit for that, but I think this is the year of Apple Pay.”
There’s more magic in the pipeline
Fans are eagerly anticipating the release of Apple’s first timepiece, but Cook teased that there’s a lot more magic coming out of Infinite Loop this year. Apple still has a “robust product and services pipeline,” according to Cook, who promised to shed more light on that later in 2015.
Apple has two big plays in the works: iPhone-in-your-automobile platform CarPlay and home-automation framework HomeKit. Both just started gaining momentum at the end of 2014, but it sounds like Apple may have more big news for both this year.
iPhone 6 > iPhone 6 Plus
Cook wouldn’t report the exact mix, but he did say the iPhone 6 was the most popular iPhone last quarter. The bigger-screen handset fared better in some areas than others, though, with Cook revealing there’s definitely a geographic preference for the iPhone 6 Plus that’s not consistent around the world. Some people just love their big screens, but the iPhone 5c is still selling well, too. Supply/demand balance for both iPhones wasn’t reached until January.
Tim can’t live without Apple Watch
When asked about his expectations for Apple Watch, Cook gave the upcoming wearable a glowing review.
“I’m using it everyday and I love it and I can’t live without it,” he said. “The number of developers writing apps for it are impressive and we’re seeing incredible innovation out there.”
‘Early 2015’ means ‘April’
Previous reports claimed that Apple was planning to launch Apple Watch in March, but Cook told investors that the project is still in development to launch in April. Cook defended the later-than-expected launch date, saying it’s totally within the timeframe Apple gave us.
“What we were saying with ‘early 2015,’ we’re thinking ‘early’ is the first four months of the year, ‘mid’ is the middle four months, and ‘late’ is the last four months,” Cook explained. “So it’s basically when we thought. But we’re going to start shipping it soon because we’ve got customers that are wanting to get one.”
To be fair, we weren’t expecting Apple Watch to launch before spring, and if a few more weeks in development will help battery life, we’re all for it.
iPhone 6 still has legs
Apple’s not expecting revenues to fall off a cliff after that amazing holiday season. Cook said he is “incredibly bullish” that the iPhone “does have legs” beyond this last blowout quarter, mainly because “only a small fraction of the install base has upgraded.”
Apple saw the highest number of customers new to iPhone over the holidays, along with the highest number of customers switching from Android. “Between the switchers and people that are new to iPhone and our upgraders — which make a small fraction of our install base but we’re still proud of — we feel very confident in what’s in front of us,” said Cook. Not to mention all the people in the world who don’t even own any smartphone yet.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
27 responses to “7 biggest revelations from Apple’s historic earnings call”
Yeah… “more magic in the pipeline” – Translation “Upgrading Current Hardware”. How ‘exciting’ Mr. Cooks. You are as amusing as an Amish comedian (no offense to the Amish).
What a stupid thing to say.
Do really have to offend someone you who has an opinion different than yours, asshole? Keep your comments to yourself and respect someone else opinion or is it too hard for your liberal mind to do?
Try again. This time in English.
Grow up. I speak 3 languages fluently, and you? Arrogance will get you nowhere.
Awesome!!! I’ll email you a cupcake…
Sugar-free please
Yummy!!! :)
..
Lol…
Lol. You just insulted Tim cook for having an opinion different than yours.
Hey, liberal has nothing to do with it. You’re engaging in the same BS he is. Stupid asshole is stupid asshole. Get it right!!!!
Why then don’t you respect his opinion? And that opinion is “What a stupid thing to say.”
you don’t have to upgrade son
> Upgrading Current Hardware
That is precisely what 99% of android phones have been about for ever, More screen size with every newer model, more ram, new processor etc etc. Processor and Ram need improving so often because cause the OS is as poorly optimised as the chrome browser.
> more magic in the pipeline
Is a valid thing to say from Apple’s side as their execution of products and technologies has nearly always far exceeded that of others. Just as an example – apple pay came out 2 years after google wallet, which is so much more easier to use than google wallet(from adding cards to making payments), adds a seamless level of security with touch id, has gained almost as much if not more traction with customers thanks to partnerships with companies.
Steve Ballmer must just be kicking himself.
Steve is no longer mIcrosoft CEO. Educate yourself ;)
“Apple wrapped up its earnings call this afternoon by announcing an unprecedented 74 million iPhone sales to go along with its $76.4 billion in revenue that broke the record for the most money made by a corporation in history.”
Were you listening to the same CC that I was listening to? The one I listened to STARTED with the number of iPhones sold and then built from there. Why do you say that they ended with that number? When someone in the press plays fast and loose with facts, I have to wonder about their agenda.
The drive-by media ALWAYS has an agenda. ournalism died years ago.
I’m not playing loose with the facts. The facts are the facts and they are there. I didn’t change them. They announced 74.5 million iPhones sold. $74.6 billion in revenue made. What part of that paragraph changes those facts or advances some stupid agenda?
Well if the past few years are any indication, we have a LONG time to wait before seeing any of that “more magic in the pipeline”, probably until October. Apple has been doing one big release of new hardware per year for several years now, with little minor spec bumps in between.
“by announcing an unprecedented 74 million iPhone sales to go along with its $76.4 billion in revenue that broke the record for the most money made by a corporation in history.”
Revenue is not the same thing as profits. Also, $76.5G in revenue is anything but a record.
If you are going to call yourself a journalist and have people take you seriously, making sure you know what you are on about before you write it.
You’re right, revenue is not the same as profit, and nowhere in my article have I said it is.
Revenue is how much money a company brings in total. Profit is how much money you made after expenses. Thanks to the record $74.6 billion Apple made last quarter, it was Apple to earn $18 billion in profit (as mentioned in the article)
S&P verfied that the $18 billion in profits was the most a company has ever made in a quarter, topping the previous record set by Exxon in Q2 2012 with $15.9 billion.
Please make sure you know what you’re talking about before commenting. If not, I hear 9to5mac loves trolls in their comments.
Any reason why you are not “approving” my reply to this comment? Don’t want your readers to see you made a mistake, got called on it and then tried to cover it up?
nope. I made a typo with $76.4 billion and clarified that the revenue was a record for apple and profit was a corporate record.
Not going to debate if it was a typo or not, but even if it was, don’t correct it without disclosing that correction.
Since my comment with the link requires approval, and you are clearly ignoring it, will leave it as text.
While you may be correct in your reply and your article NOW, you originally published with a serious factual error that confused revenue with earnings and stated Apple set a record for profits of $75G.
More concerning though is after I called you on this mistake, you edited your article, but left no notes to highlight the change and why it was made.
I do not come to this site much. If this is representative of the standards of this site though, that’s probably a good thing.