Analysts had predicted that Apple would have a strong day with hardware this quarter, anticipating between 54 and 56 million iPhones shipped according to Fortune, as well as around 25 million iPads and 4.6 million Macs. The real results showed Apple missing on iPhones with 51 million moved, but beating expectations for the rest slightly with 26 million iPads and 4.8 million Macs.
Remember that this is the quarter that holds the bulk of Apple’s holiday sales, spanning as it does October through December, 2013. iPod sales, which continued their downward trend, selling only 6 million units, vs. 12.7 million in the year ago period. That’s not surprising, though, and nothing Apple is likely very concerned about as people continue to move to multi-use devices like iPhones and iPads. The iPhone number is the one everyone will be watching and talking about.
iPhone and iPad sales were both up year over year, however. In fiscal Q1 2013, Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones, 22.9 million iPads and 4.1 million Macs. That makes this a record quarter for Cupertino on all counts, spurred by the introduction of the new iPhone 5c, 5s, iPad air and iPad mini, as well as new MacBook Pro models introduced in October. It was an incomparable year in terms of new hardware leading into the holiday quarter, and the numbers reflect that.
iPhone sales showed a 29.5 percent increase between Q1 2012 and Q1 2013, while iPads had just over 48 percent growth in shipments during the same period. This time around (between Q1 2013 and Q1 2014), the iPhone showed just 6.7 percent growth, while the iPad had only 8.4 percent increase in shipments. Those numbers likely won’t do much to curtail the impression that Apple is starting to struggle with how much room it has to grow those businesses, but they still represent record quarters.
Source: TechCrunch
