Revenue came in at $89.5 billion for Apple in the July-September period, a 1% decrease from the previous quarter.
ADVERTISEMENTResults released on Thursday showed a slump in Apple’s Mac, iPad, and Wearables business, which includes products like the AirPods and the Apple Watch.
Total quarterly revenue beat pessimistic Wall street predictions of $89.28 billion (€83.8 billion), although this clearly wasn’t enough to assure investors.
This year, Apple’s shares have been up by around 32.5%, but they saw an approximate 3% dip in pre-market US trading on Friday.
It’s likely that a negative outlook for the upcoming holiday season put a damper on the numbers, as Apple said it doesn’t expect revenue growth in December, which is usually its busiest period.
Analysts were predicting sales of around $123 billion for this quarter, a year-on-year rise of approximately 5%, although CFO Luca Maestri has now told investors he expects “similar” quarterly revenue to last year.
This year’s upcoming quarter will however be one week shorter, and in an interview with CNBC, Apple CEO Tim Cook said it will be difficult to compare December Mac sales from 2023 with those recorded last year.
“We don’t have the compare phenomenon on a year-over-year basis,” said Cook, who explained that supply disruption in 2022 pushed third-quarter sales into fourth-quarter numbers.
Cook also added that Mac products could boost revenue this holiday season thanks to new M3 chips.
iPhone and services sales provide some relief
Despite earnings from iPads falling 10% year-on-year, and Mac revenue falling 34%, there were some glimmers of positivity in Apple’s earnings report.
In line with Wall Street expectations, iPhone sales increased more than 2% from last year, bringing in $43.81 billion.
Analysts will be looking at the next quarterly results to see the impact of the iPhone 15, which was only launched a few days before the end of the quarter.
Another saving grace for Apple was its services revenue of $22.3 billion, up 16% from the year before.
The figure includes earnings from iCloud storage, Apple Music, AppleCare warranties, App Store purchases, and advertising.
Notably, a large part of this revenue comes from a deal with Google, which is worth an estimated $19 billion this year.
As part of the agreement, Apple receives money to make Google the default IOS search engine, a point that has become central to Google’s ongoing antitrust trial led by the US Department of Justice.
Apple also hopes to boost revenue in the upcoming months after raising fees for Apple TV+ from $6.99 to $9.99 per month. The company similarly announced subscription fee hikes for Apple News+, Apple Arcade, and the Apple One bundle last month.
