Apple Inc. continues to grow and exceed expectations if its 2018 third-quarter results are anything to go by.
According to a Tuesday press release, growth was led by sales of the iPhone, services such as Apple Store and Apple Music as well as the Apple Watch and AirPods.
Apple’s revenue for the third quarter, which ended June 30th, 2018 was $53.3 billion (all figures USD), an increase from last year’s third-quarter revenue of $44.2 billion.
In an earnings call, CEO Tim Cook called it a record quarter for the technology giant, declaring it the best ever for revenue and earnings.
According to Cook, this marks Apple’s seventh consecutive quarter of continuous growth, as well as its strongest rate of growth during the past 11 quarters.
Services continue to grow
Services continues to be a key factor in the company’s success, accounting for $9.5 billion dollars in revenue, which according to the release is an all-time record.
The App Store, celebrating its 10th anniversary, was a large component of the growth in Apple’s services revenue.
“The app economy is thriving and thanks to the App Store, it’s generating jobs for tens of millions of people around the world,” said Cook.
He also noted that, “customers around the world are visiting the App Store more often and downloading more apps than ever before. And based on third party research estimates, the App Store generated nearly twice the revenue of Google Play so far in 2018.”
Apple Pay also posted a notable increase: more than 1 billion transactions during the past quarter, three times the total in 2017.
iPhone still the leader
Despite Apple’s strong growth in services, iPhone sales still represented the bulk of Apple’s revenue, with the success of the iPhone X increasing its revenue by 20 per cent from the same period last year. During this quarter, Apple sold 41.3 million iPhones, generating a revenue of $29.9 billion.
Quoting statistics from the International Data Corporation, Cook said iPhone’s grew faster than the global smartphone market, gaining in almost every one of its top markets, including Canada, the Middle East and Africa.
Cook attributes the iPhone’s continued success to people switching over to Apple products and first-time smartphone buyers, in addition to existing customer loyalty.
Moreover, the above growth was in spite of decreased inventory, according to Apple chief financial officer Luca Maestri.
“Our performance from a customer demand standpoint was stronger than our reported results as we reduced iPhone channel inventory by 3.5 million units during the quarter. We exited the June quarter towards the lower end of our target range of 5 to 7 weeks of iPhone channel inventory,” Maestri said.
During the earnings call, Cook also noted the continued success of the Apple Watch and AirPods, with these wearable products showing sales growth of 60 per cent.
Cook waxed nostalgic during the call, saying “we’re thrilled to see so many customers enjoying AirPods. It reminds me of the early days of iPod when I started noticing white earbuds everywhere I went.”
Next quarter predictions
In the release Apple predicted continued growth going into its fourth quarter, estimating revenue somewhere between $60 billion and $62 billion.
With these predictions for continued growth, the company’s stocks have moved into an all time high, with shares worth more than $200 as of this writing, a 5.2 per cent increase since it released its third quarter earnings.
Thanks to these results and its next quarterly predictions, Apple is closer than ever to possibly winning the race for a company with the market value of $1 trillion.
Our thanks to investment research platform Seeking Alpha for the transcriptions from Apple’s July 31 Q3 earnings call.
