4 things we learned from Apple’s bombastic earnings call

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, big tech companies haven’t stopped making massive piles of money. Apple announced its earnings for the April-June time period last night, and the $2 trillion company had another record quarter on its books.

Here’s what we learned from it:

1. This was Apple’s most profitable spring quarter

What’s an Apple quarterly result with the words “the most profitable quarter ever” in some context? Apple earned $81.6 billion in revenue (up 36% year-on-year), and recorded $21.7 billion profit. These numbers make it the most successful April-June quarter in the company’s history.

2. The iPhone 12 is a hit (and other hardware is also doing well)

Apple stopped reporting iPhone sales numbers more than two years ago. However, the company said that it registered a 50% growth in sales year-on-year with more people buying computing devices in the pandemic. The total worth of those sales? A whopping $39.6 billion.

As per Apple’s quarterly result sheet, other hardware categories, including Mac, iPad, and Home and Wearables also registered significant percentage growth year-on-year.

3. Chip shortage effects are real

Apple’s CFO, Luca Maestri, had warned in April that the global chip shortage could hurt sales by around $4 billion. However, the number ended up being less than $3 billion. In April, the company had said that iPad and Mac production took an impact because of the chip shortage.

But the company issued a caution, that because of this global problem, the growth rate might not be sustainable. This resulted in Apple shares dipping by 2% in after-hours trading.

4. Apple’s services business is going strong

Apple began its services push in 2019, and it’s seemingly paying off. The firm registered $17.9 billion in revenue in the last quarter with a massive 33% growth. CFO Maestri said that more than 700 million people are paying for Apple’s services that include, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV+. 

In the last quarter, the company introduced new offerings such as lossless and spatial audio on Apple Music, iCould+ for added security, and new Apple Wallet features like coupon code storage.