Apple broke all kinds of revenue records during the critical holiday quarter, the company said Thursday, including setting an all-time quarterly high of $143.8 billion. The shockingly good revenues led to sky-high earnings per share that blew past Wall Street’s lofty expectations. And Apple gave the iPhone much of the credit.
“Apple is proud to report a remarkable, record-breaking quarter, with revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16 percent from a year ago and well above our expectations,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a press release. “iPhone had its best-ever quarter driven by unprecedented demand, with all-time records across every geographic segment, and Services also achieved an all-time revenue record, up 14 percent from a year ago.”
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In October, Apple’s CEO predicted the current quarter would be “the best ever in the history of the company.” Nailed it.
Before Thursday’s announcement, Wall Street analysts predicted that Apple’s quarterly revenue would hit $138 billion, up more than 11%, according to Yahoo Finance. And they predicted that earnings per share would reach $2.67. The company beat both those estimates, with revenue growing 16%, and EPS shooting upward as well.
“During the December quarter, our record business performance and strong margins led to EPS growth of 19 percent, setting a new all-time EPS record,” said Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO.
A strong quarter for iPhone, Apple services and iPad
iPhone revenue in the December quarter climbed to $85.3 billion — an increase of a whopping 23% versus the same quarter of the previous year. As Cook noted, that’s the highest iPhone quarterly revenue total ever.
Revenue from Apple services — the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, etc. — hit $30.1 billion, a 14% year-over-year increase. For example, Apple TV viewership grew 36% in December over the previous year, Cook said in the earnings call that followed the press release. Meanwhile, Apple Music “climbed to all-time highs inboth listenership and new subscriber growth,” he said.
iPad revenue also grew. It went up 6% to $8.6 billion in the December quarter. The new M5 iPad Pro that launched during the quarter added to that increase, according to Parekh.
Not all the news was good, though. Revenue from Mac sales dropped 7%, likely because customers are still waiting for new M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro and the M5 Mac mini.
Revenue from wearables like Apple Watch and AirPods dropped 2%. Apple’s CFO said the company wasn’t able to make enough of the new AirPods Pro 3 to meet demand, reducing sales.
Apple’s success is worldwide, including in India and China
Cook said Apple’s killing it all over the world — including in China, a country that’s been a source of some concern in recent years.
“We set all-time revenue records in the Americas, Europe, Japan, and rest of Asia-Pacific, and grew in the vast majority of markets we track,” Cook said. “We continue to gain momentum in emerging markets, which includes India, where we saw strong double-digit revenue growth. Greater China also grew 38% year-over-year, driven by iPhone, which had record upgraders and double-digit growth on switchers.”
Lewis Wallace contributed to this report.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
