Apple announced its quarterly earnings in a conference today. The company also said that it will stop releasing sales reports for iPhone, iPad and Mac from the next quarter. As part of the “Other Products” business, Apple has stopped sales reports for products such as Apple Watch and AirPods.
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It is a big deal for Apple to choose not to announce its biggest source of revenue (especially the iPhone). This means that investors can only guess the market’s acceptance of Apple’s flagship product. As part of these changes, Apple will now report total revenue and cost of sales. The “Other Products” business was officially renamed “Wearables, Home Appliances, and Accessories,” including Apple Watch, Beats, and HomePod. Not only that, iPod touches that are not part of these three products are also included. It is worth pointing out that Apple’s competitors in the smartphone industry, such as Samsung, does not share its exact sales data. This means that external observers will now have to rely entirely on analysts to estimate iPhone shipments and not be able to verify the accuracy of the data.
This decision reflects the slowdown in sales of Apple’s key products and Apple seem to rely on the service business. For many new phone users, Apple’s iPhone’s are too pricey and they have to settle for less. In time past, Chinese OEMs were not trusted and Apple and Samsung had the market to themselves. However, the tides are changing. With the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and other Chinese OEMs releasing durable, trusted and maintained flagships, Apple sales will definitely be affected.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said: “Quarter sales do not represent the basic situation of the company.” According to Apple’s financial report data, 2018 Q4 company revenue of 62.9 billion US dollars, quarterly sales of 46.889 million iPhone, 9.69 million iPad, 5.299 million Mac, and $ 9.981 billion in service revenue. This is higher than the $52.6 billion in revenue for the same period last year, which is also higher than the $61.57 million that Wall Street generally expects.
