Apple Announces Another Record Quarter But Investors Are Not Enough

Apple has just released the financial results for the last fiscal quarter of 2018, which runs from July to September, and has once again broken records, being the best quarter in its history in terms of results. However, investors do not seem to be satisfied with that, and the company's shares are falling at the moment, something common.

More than $ 62.000 billion in revenue, 46,9 million iPhones sold, 9,7 million iPads and 5.3 million Macs, to which must be added the income from its Services sector, which sets an absolute record with more than 10.000 billion dollars. We analyze the data below.

The iPhone increases but little

It is one of the data that has least convinced investors, despite the fact that the figures that Apple itself estimated have been exceeded. The iPhone has sold in this quarter better than in the same of the previous year. A total of 46,9 million iPhone sold between the months of July and September, which also means that only the first two weeks of sales of the iPhone XS and XS Max have been counted, and nothing of the XR. The year before, 46,7 million iPhones were sold. The market is already very mature and the figures have reached what seems like a hard-to-break ceiling.

If we look at Mac sales, we see that the figures are practically identical to the previous year (5,3 million vs. 5,4 million), and we could say that practically identical to those of recent years. Macs hold up year after year, with no surprises, which is good in a declining market. The iPads are down slightly, but we can also say that they are flat compared to recent years.

Income increases a lot

However, these "stable" sales figures do not translate into "stable" income, far from it. Apple has made $ 10.300 billion more this year than the same quarter last year, which is impressive. With $ 62.900 billion in revenue, Apple has broken a new quarterly record, being this Q4 2018 the best Q4 in its history. This is because revenue per device has increased in all cases except with the iPad, and in the case of the iPhone it has also reached an astonishing figure in just one year: With practically the same number of units sold, Apple has entered 20% more than the same quarter of the previous year. That is, Apple sells the same but earns more with each unit sold, so it makes more.

The Services sector is growing again, beating all records once again, reaching close to 10.000 billion dollars. Services already ranks second in revenue, only behind the almighty iPhone. Macs, iPads and the “others” catch-all are already far behind Services. Apple Pay is the main protagonist and responsible for this great advance in the company's Services, and it still has a lot to grow.

Sales figures are over

With all this, why do investors punish the company on the stock market? Well, you never know what is going through the minds of these people, but they would probably want to see how the sales figures of the iPhone grew exponentially again, as in the past, something that Tim Cook himself has said will not happen again in a market that is already so mature and with so much competition. That is why they have made the decision to no longer offer specific sales data. We will not know from Apple how many iPhones have been sold, or how many iPads or Macs. We will know their income, their profits and how they are divided into the different product categories, but no units sold.

Apple already does this with some of its products, such as the Apple Watch or the HomePod, of which we only know very ambiguous data on sales. It seems that these unpredictable reactions from investors coupled with the fact that no other direct rival company to Apple does they would have provoked this reaction. From now on to go crazy with the estimates of the analysts ...