Apple Inc sold fewer iPhones than expected in the first three months of the year, but that bare statistic hides an important bright spot for the company. The average selling price of an iPhone grew more than it has since the days of the iPhone 6.
Apple does not release figures for how many of each model it sells, but executives pointed to the premium-priced iPhone 7 Plus, which sells for up to US$969 fully loaded, as the key to boosting the amount it gets on average for each handset.
The average selling price of iPhones is important to Apple because the smartphone market is maturing and its growth slowing. Apple’s ability to get more cash for each smartphone sold is critical to growing its profits.
“One of the things that we did not get right was the mix between the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus,” Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook told analysts on the company’s earnings conference call on Tuesday, in response to a question about how supply of its top-end handset was constrained during the holiday shopping season.
“The demand was much stronger for the 7 Plus than we had predicted and so it took us a little while to adjust all the way back through the supply chain and to bring iPhone 7 Plus into balance, which occurred this past quarter,” he said.
The popularity of the iPhone 7 Plus represents a triumph for Apple with a new departure: Packing a unique feature into its most expensive iPhone.
The iPhone 6 Plus differed from its smaller sibling only in screen size, but the 7 Plus model has a physically different camera that enables what Apple calls “portrait mode” for taking shots with a blurred background — a feature more commonly found on large, expensive digital cameras.
It is a strategy Apple could use again. Many analysts believe the company is to reserve certain features for the premium-priced model of its next, eagerly awaited iPhone — such as a higher-quality display — that could sell for more than US$1,000.
The 10th-anniversary iPhone range might also have features such as wireless charging and 3D facial recognition.
Apple sold 50.76 million iPhones in its fiscal second quarter ended April 1, down from 51.19 million in the same period the previous year.
Analysts on average had estimated iPhone sales of 52.27 million, according to financial data and analytics firm FactSet.
Despite the dip in unit sales, iPhone revenues rose 1.2 percent in the quarter, helped by a higher average selling price.
The company’s net income rose to US$11.03 billion, or US$2.10 per share, compared with US$10.52 billion, or US$1.90 per share, in the same period last year.
Analysts had on average expected US$2.02 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 4.6 percent to US$52.90 billion in the quarter, compared with analysts’ average estimate of US$53.02 billion.
Apple’s revenue from the Greater China region fell 14.1 percent to US$10.73 billion in the quarter, as cheaper rivals in the region chipped away at sales.
Apple chief financial officer Luca Maestri said that sales of Apple Macs and the company’s services were strong in China during the quarter.
“The performance we’re seeing in China should get better going forward this year,” he said.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) share of the global foundry market rose to almost 70 percent last year amid booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI), market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said on Thursday. The contract chipmaker posted US$122.54 billion in revenue, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, accounting for 69.9 percent of the global market, TrendForce said. Its share was up from 64.4 percent in 2024, it said. TSMC’s closest rival, Samsung Electronics, was a distant second, posting US$12.63 billion in sales, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier, for a 7.2 percent share of the global market. In the
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
RSS