Apple pulled in record revenue during the July-through-September quarter: $90.1 billion, an increase of 8% over the same period of last year. That’s $1.29 in earnings per share, a 4% annual bump. Most of Apple’s signature products experienced revenue growth.
“Our record September quarter results continue to demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in spite of a challenging and volatile macroeconomic backdrop,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO.
25% surge in Mac sales revenue powers overall growth
During Apple’s earnings call after Thursday’s announcement, CEO Tim Cook gave a lot of credit for the quarter’s revenue surge of 25% for Mac sales over the same quarter last year – best in the history of the company – to the arrival of the popular M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro.
“Their incredible long battery life. stunningly rich display and lightning fast speeds are a signature part of the Mac experience and help drive an all time record revenue for Mac during the September quarter,” he said.
But he also admitted that Apple’s problems making Macs in the April-through-June period helped drive the increase seen in the following quarter. “We were able to satisfy pent-up demand that carried forward from the significant supply constraints we faced during the June quarter,” said the CFO.
Chart: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
And the company’s overall bump in revenue took place in spite of heavy foreign exchange “headwinds” affecting performance, Maestri said.
“We reach the September quarter revenue record of $90.1 billion, up 8% year over year, despite over 600 basis points of negative foreign exchange impact with new September quarter records in the Americas, Europe, Greater China and rest of Asia Pacific importantly in constant currency,” he noted, adding that product revenue of $71 billion for the quarter was up 9% year-over-year.
Maestri also pointed out that, with the end of Apple’s fiscal year (the holidays are Apple’s Q1), it has been a staggeringly great year for revenue growth.
“[For] our entire company during the past four quarters we grew our business by 8% or $29 billion, reaching more than $394 billion of revenue,” he said.
iPad decline blamed on product launch timing
iPhone revenue during the September quarter increased 10% year-over-year to $42.6 billion. This is Apple’s largest source of revenue by a wide margin, so its growth added substantially to the bottom line. Revenue includes the iPhone 14 series which debuted in October.
But iPad revenue had another down quarter, dropping 13% compared to last year to $7.2 billion. When asked about the drop, Cook pointed out that the revenue during the September 2021 quarter was pushed up by the releases of multiple new tablets. That didn’t happen this year.
“A year ago, we launched iPads in September,” noted Cook. “We launched iPads this year in October. The other point to remember is that the iPad Pro had just launched before the quarter started in the year ago quarter so it was our first quarter of it. So it was an exceptionally strong iPad quarter a year ago and the launches were really key to to that performance.”
Looking ahead to a meh quarter
Before Thursday’s announcement, analysts were expecting Apple to bring in $88.90 billion. And the company was expected to earn $1.27 per share. It beat both of those predictions, but analysts also expected iPhone revenue to reach $43.2 billion, which it did not.
And Maestri has a warning for investors about the last quarter of 2022. Mac sales revenue will decline versus the same period of 2021.
“We have a very challenging compare against last year, which had the benefit of the launch and associated channel fill of our newly redesigned MacBook Pro with M1,” said the CFO. “Therefore, we expect Mac revenue to decline substantially year over year during December quarter.”
The comment raises questions about whether Apple will introduce the Macs it supposedly has waiting for November.
Ed Hardy and David Snow co-wrote this article.
Source: Apple
