The last three months of any given year is always a good time for Apple. But the final quarter of 2016 was a record breaking one for the tech giant. In that period, the company registered its best ever quarterly iPhone sales (thanks to the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus), selling 78.3 million units of its smartphone devices. On top of that, Apple also managed to end its streak of declining iPhone sales which has been going on for three consecutive quarters. Moreover, Apple also posted its highest earning quarter ever, both in terms of revenue and earnings per share. Oh, the last quarter’s numbers also beat projections set by industry watchers from Wall Street (78 million iPhone units sold).
Truly not a bad quarter for Apple. Especially so when you consider that apart from the iPhone attributed sales, Apple also set new earnings records for its Apple Watch wearables, Mac computers, and Services business (fueled by record shattering purchases made by iOS mobile users from the App Store) -- as revealed as much by Tim Cook, the chief executive officer of Apple, via a press release.
As for the iPhone 7 models, despite helping Apple accomplish a quarter for the record books, it is still not the best selling iPhones ever (that honor is still being held by 2014’s iPhone 6 devices). But they did deliver enough to break Apple’s decreasing sales streak. The bigger iPhone 7 Plus in particular enjoyed very solid demand, due mainly to its dual camera configuration. In Q4 2016, the Plus model captured a higher share in sales compared to the regular model (the smaller iPhone 7).
Despite the success of the newest iPhone devices, iPad tablets continue to struggle attracting buyers. During the most recent quarter, Apple sold only 13.1 million iPads, which is not an improvement over the 16.1 million units it sold one year ago. What is worse is that the 13.1 million units sold also failed to clear the 14.8 million units sold projected by Wall Street analysts. The latest quarter also marked the 12th consecutive quarter that Apple has suffered declining iPad sales. With regards to Macs, Apple sold 5.4 million units, beating analysts’ expectations of 5.2 million units. The previous year, Apple had sold 5.3 million Macs during the same quarter. Apple’s Services business managed to generate $7.2 billion in revenues, representing a remarkable 18 percent growth.
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