IDC is out today with its latest data on the wearable market — both smartwatches and more basic activity trackers— and within we get a look at Apple Watch sales for the fourth quarter of 2015.
Apple has officially posted its Q4 2015 earnings results with $51.5 billion in revenue and $11.1 billion in profit from the July to September quarter. While Apple isn’t breaking out Apple Watch sales, Q4 is only the second quarter to include numbers for the product (grouped with iPods, Apple TVs, and more in the Other category) and the first to include any iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus sales. Apple previously announced over 13 million iPhone 6s and 6s Plus launch sales with purchases completed by Saturday, September 26th included in today’s numbers.
Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 fourth quarter ended September 26, 2015. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $51.5 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.1 billion, or $1.96 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $42.1 billion and net profit of $8.5 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.9 percent compared to 38 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Here’s Apple’s breakdown of iPhone, iPad, and Mac sales from the quarter:
Apple’s “Other” category, which holds Apple Watch, Apple TV, Beats hardware, iPods, and accessories, reported $3.04 billion in revenue. That’s update from $2.6 billion in the prior quarter.
Apple CEO Tim Cook had this to say about the quarter:
“Fiscal 2015 was Apple’s most successful year ever, with revenue growing 28% to nearly $234 billion. This continued success is the result of our commitment to making the best, most innovative products on earth, and it’s a testament to the tremendous execution by our teams,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are heading into the holidays with our strongest product lineup yet, including iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple Watch with an expanded lineup of cases and bands, the new iPad Pro and the all-new Apple TV which begins shipping this week.”
And Luca Maestri, chief financial officer at the company, said this:
“Apple’s record September quarter results drove earnings per share growth of 38% and operating cash flow of $13.5 billion,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned $17 billion to our investors during the quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and we have now completed over $143 billion of our $200 billion capital return program.”
How do these numbers relate to past performance? Apple’s Q4 results compare to the prior quarter’s $49 billion in revenue, 47 million iPhone sales, 10.9 million iPad sales, and 4.7 million Mac sales. In the same quarter a year ago, Apple reported $42.1 billion in revenue, 39 million iPhones sold, 12.3 million iPads sold, and 5.5 million Macs sold. Apple reported $10.7 billion in profit in the prior quarter and $8.5 billion in profit in the year ago quarter.
Read on for Apple’s full Q4 earnings report, and stay tuned as we await Apple’s quarterly conference call at 2 p.m. PT/ 5 p.m. ET to discuss these results. Tim Cook and Luca Maestri are expected to deliver prepared commentary on the earnings results then field questions from analysts participating on the call.
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An investment note by KGI predicts that Apple will next week report year-on-year iPhone sales up 23.6% to 48.5M, but says that that holiday quarter sales will be down on last year, and that the decline will continue into the first quarter of next year.
KGI says that China is the big factor, included as a launch country this year, and hence contributing to calendar Q3/fiscal Q4 sales, while last year’s China sales fell into the holiday quarter. It estimates that 22M of the iPhones sold last quarter were the new iPhone 6s/Plus. Apple sold 47M iPhones in the previous quarter.
Despite the launch of the iPad Pro next month, both iPad and Mac sales will fall across all three quarters, predicts the report …
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Apple has announced this evening that its fiscal fourth quarter earnings call will take place on Tuesday, October 27th at 2PM PT/5PM ET, with the earnings release dropping roughly thirty minutes before that. The call will report earnings for the three month period ending this month.
As we mentioned last month, Apple is scheduled to host its quarterly conference call today to discuss its earnings report from the fourth quarter of its fiscal year: this includes 39 million iPhones, 12.3 million iPads, 2.6 million iPods, and 5.5 million Macs. Apple already reported today that it earned $42.1 billion in revenue during its Q4 period.
This quarterly conference call with analysts and investors will include the opening weekend of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales which included a record 10 million sales including 4 million units sold during the first 24 hours of pre-orders. It will also be the first call since Apple previewed the Apple Watch to the public, shipped iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, and introduced new iPads and a Retina 5K iMac, although sales for those devices are not included in the previous quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri will also likely mention Apple Pay, the company’s mobile payment service which launched for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users earlier today.
Investors and analysts will have an opportunity to ask Tim Cook and company questions during the earnings call and we’ll be listening to bring you coverage starting at 5pm EST/ 2pm PST.
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Apple today announced its Q4 2014 earnings results reporting that the company earned $42.1 billion in revenue and $8.5 billion in profit during the quarter.
“Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2014 fourth quarter ended September 27, 2014. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $42.1 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.5 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $37.5 billion and net profit of $7.5 billion, or $1.18 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 37 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue.”
In addition to reporting its earnings, Apple has disclosed sales numbers for its main revenue generators. The company sold:
Totals:
Apple CEO Tim Cook had the following to say regarding the results:
“Our fiscal 2014 was one for the record books, including the biggest iPhone launch ever with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With amazing innovations in our new iPhones, iPads and Macs, as well as iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, we are heading into the holidays with Apple’s strongest product lineup ever. We are also incredibly excited about Apple Watch and other great products and services in the pipeline for 2015.”
Apple CFO Luca Maestri added this:
“Our strong business performance drove EPS growth of 20 percent and a record $13.3 billion in cash flow from operations in the September quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We continued to execute aggressively against our capital return program, spending over $20 billion in the quarter and bringing cumulative returns to $94 billion.”
Apple’s stock price, which closed at $99.76 (up 2.14% today following the launch of Apple Pay) is up during after-hours trading as well crossing the $100 mark at certain points.
During Apple’s fourth quarter, the company shipped the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to customers and closed on its deal to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music. During the previous earnings call with investors and analysts, Apple CFO Luca Maestri shared that the company will begin separately reporting earnings from Beats in 2015.
These numbers compare to last quarter’s results of $37.4 billion in revenue and sales of 35.2 million iPhones, 13.2 million iPads, and 4.4 million Macs. You can also compare today’s numbers to analyst expectations from before the announcement. Apple is holding a conference call today at 2 PM Pacific/5 PM Eastern time to discuss the quarter’s earnings, which we will be covering live. Cook and Maestri will likely share prepared remarks and then take a series of questions at the end from financial analysts.
For Q1 2015 Apple is providing guidance between $63.5 billion and $66.5 billion. The full Q4 earnings results release is below:
Apple has announced it is holding its earnings call for company results in fiscal Q4 (covering July, August and September) on October 20th. Following tradition, Apple will announce earnings in a press release about half an hour before the earnings call at 2PM PST. Apple’s earnings for fiscal Q4 will include the first wave of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales, as it went on sale towards the end of the period. However, Apple is unlikely to breakdown the split between new and old iPhone sales, as it only reports total sales numbers for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the worldwide smartphone market highlighting shipments and marketshare by operating system for last quarter and all of 2013. Together Android and iOS made up around 95.7% of all smartphone shipments in the last quarter of 2013 (up from 91.2% in the year ago quarter), but the real story is how much Android has grown compared to iOS. As of last quarter, Android made up almost 80% of that 95.7% and shipped close to 800 million of the billion smartphones shipped during 2013.
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Update: Live webcast will be at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq413
Apple will hold its quarterly earnings call to announce results on October 28th, as noted on Apple’s investor website. Typically, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer will read prepared statements about the company’s performance, before opening the call to a question and answer session for analysts. The call will begin at 2PM Pacific / 5PM Eastern time. Apple will publish a press release reporting their results about half an hour before the call is due to begin.
Research firm IDC is out today with its latest report on the smart-connected device market, and it includes worldwide shipments of desktop PCs, notebook PCs, smartphones, and tablets. IDC predicted the market in total grew 29.1-percent year over year in 2012, crossing 1 billion units shipped and hitting a total value of $576.9 billion. According to the report, Apple significantly closed the gap on Samsung during the last quarter of the year. It jumped from 15.1-percent in Q3 to 20.3-percent of unit shipments in Q4 2012. That brings the company up right behind market leader Samsung, which dropped slightly from 21.8-percent to 21.2-percent in the fourth quarter:
Looking specifically at the results for the fourth quarter of 2012 (4Q12), combined shipments of desktop PCs, notebook PCs, tablets, and smartphones was nearly 378 million and revenues were more than $168 billion. In terms of market share, Apple significantly closed the gap with market leader Samsung in the quarter, as the combination of Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPad Mini brought Apple up to 20.3% unit shipment share versus 21.2% for Samsung.
Not surprisingly, Apple dominated Samsung when it came to revenue share. It took in 30.7-percent of the market compared to just 20.4-percent for Samsung by revenue:
On a revenue basis for the fourth quarter, Apple continued to dominate with 30.7% share versus 20.4% share for Samsung.
Apple’s increase is likely thanks to strong iPad and iPad mini sales, as growth in the market was “largely driven by 78.4-percent year-over-year growth in tablet shipments.” IDC expected tablet shipments to outgrow desktop PCs by the end of this year, while the tablet market could surpass the portable PC market in 2014 and provide Apple with even more opportunity to outgrow Samsung for total connected smart device shipments this year and next:
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While Apple was able to pass Samsung for the first time to become the No. 1 mobile phone vendor in the U.S. recently, Strategy Analytics latest numbers showed Samsung still dominated among global smartphone shipments in Q4. The research firm is out with a new report today that breaks down global smartphone sales by model, and, not so surprisingly, Apple’s iPhone 5 was able to take the top spot from Samsung’s Galaxy S3 to become the world’s best selling smartphone model during the quarter with 27.4 million units shipped:
According to the latest research from our Handset Country Share Tracker (CST) service, Apple’s iPhone 5 overtook Samsung’s Galaxy S3 to become the world’s best-selling smartphone model for the first time ever in the fourth quarter of 2012. Apple’s iPhone 5 smartphone model shipped an estimated 27.4 million units worldwide during the fourth quarter of 2012. The iPhone 5 captured an impressive 13 percent share of all smartphones shipped globally and it has become the world’s best-selling smartphone model for the first time ever. A rich touchscreen design, extensive distribution across dozens of countries, and generous operator subsidies have been among the main causes of the iPhone 5’s success.
Perhaps more surprising is the fact that iPhone 4S, which was discounted at the launch of iPhone 5, is also ahead of the Galaxy S3, as highlighted in the graphic above. The iPhone 4S grabbed the No. 2 position in Strategy Analytics’ study with 17.4 million units sold and 8 percent of the global smartphone market:
In addition to the iPhone 5, Apple shipped an estimated 17.4 million iPhone 4S units for 8 percent smartphone share globally in Q4 2012. Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S are currently the world’s two most popular smartphone models.We estimate Samsung’s Galaxy S3 was the world’s third best-selling smartphone model and it shipped 15.4 million units globally, capturing 7 percent share in the fourth quarter of 2012… global demand for the Galaxy S3 appears to have peaked and Samsung will surely be keen to introduce its rumored Galaxy S4 upgrade in the coming weeks to fight back against Apple’s popular iPhone range.
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At Apple’s Q4 earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked his thoughts on Microsoft’s new Surface tablet PC. Cook called it “a fairly compromised, confusing product,” and he compared it to a car that flies and floats:
“I haven’t personally played with a Surface yet… what we’re reading about it is… it’s a fairly compromised, confusing product… the toughest thing you do with a product is make hard trade offs.. we’ve really done that with the iPad.. the user experience is absolutely incredible… i suppose you could design a car that flies and floats, but i don’t think it would do all of those things well.. i think when people look at the iPad over competitive offerings they are going to really want an iPad
Cook also noted that iPhone 5 is still seeing delays but supplies are getting better:
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Apple is all set to announce its fiscal Q4 financial earnings today, during a conference call with company executives scheduled for 2 p.m. PST/ 5 p.m. EST. iPhone 5 sales are expected to be a topic of conversation, of course, while recent predictions from 59 analysts provided an average estimate of 26.3 million iPhones total for the quarter. Today, Forbes posted revised estimates from 36 of the analysts that also includes predictions for iPhone, iPod, Mac, and other product sales.
A few things we already know from CEO Tim Cook’s announcements during the iPad mini event: 5 million iPhones 5s sold during opening weekend, 3 million new iPod nano and touch units sold, and 200 million iOS 6 devices. Cook also noted the company has now sold 100 million iPads in 2.5 years and more iPads in June than any PC manufacturers’ entire PC lineup.
In Q3 Apple reported revenues of $35 billion. As for Q4, Apple predicted during its last conference call that revenues for the fourth quarter would be around $34 billion with diluted earnings per share of about $7.65. Today, Forbes pointed us to updated estimates from Wall Street showing a consensus of $8.81 on sales of $36.02 billion.
Forbes has also posted revised estimates from 36 analysts (below). Among the 20 pros in the group, the average estimate is $8.75 on sales of $35.51 billion. The independents, on the other hand, have earnings of $9.66 on sales of $37.23 billion.
As you can see from the chart of the 36 analysts below (pros in blue), the high-end of iPhone estimates hit the 32 million-unit mark, while one independent has Mac sales as high as 5.70 million units:
Apple has been selling iPhone 5’s as fast as they can make them since its mid-September launch. However, pre-order delays and retail shortages related to manufacturing troubles meant Apple was a little shy of the 10 million units predicted by analysts for opening weekend. We know Apple sold at least 5 million iPhone 5 units during the first three days of its retail launch starting Sept. 21. With a slow start and strong finish to the quarter ending on Sept. 29, today we get estimates from 59 analysts predicting iPhone sales for Q4 courtesy of Fortune. Apple is set to announce earnings for Q4 later this month on Oct. 25.
The average of the group is 26.3 million units, just slightly over the 26 million Apple sold in Q3 2012 (pros in blue, amateurs in green):
The ever-sketchy DigiTimes does not have the best reputation when it comes to predicting Apple product launches, but today the publication is reporting Apple OEM Pegatron began receiving orders for a new iPhone and a next-generation 10-inch iPad. It also reported Apple plans to release a 7-inch iPad in August:
Pegatron Technology reportedly has landed orders for a new-generation iPhone to be launched in September and a 10-inch iPad to be launched in the fourth quarter, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers. Pegatron is currently an OEM for the iPhone 4S and new iPad… A 7-inch iPad, which reportedly will be released in August, will be manufactured by Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry).
With the release of Apple’s new iPad last March, we find it hard to imagine Apple plans to break its yearly release window with a new 10-inch iPad, in addition to a 7-inch variant in August. We heard many rumors lately about a 7-inch or 7.85-inch tablet, indicating Apple could be experimenting with smaller screen sizes. In April, a translated report from a Chinese publication claimed Apple was prepping 7.85-inch iPad minis to launch in Q3 for $250 to $300, but we have not heard anything concrete on Apple’s plans to release a 7-inch tablet. As for iPhone, we are still expecting an October launch at this point.
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Counting tablet PCs as personal computers, Apple is about to overtake Hewlett-Packard and become the world’s top personal computer vendor. All should be known soon when Apple reveals holiday quarter earnings in a conference call with analysts scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24.
HP CEO Meg Whitman was first to admit that such a turn of event neither would nor be entirely unsurprising given Apple’s lead in the post-PC world. Whitman said back in November, “It’s possible if you integrate tablets.” Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt wrote that, based on a poll of 42 analysts, iPad sales could hit the 14 million mark, a notable increase over the 11.12 million iPads sold during the September quarter.
Fortune’s estimates range from 11.7 million (Hendi Susanto of Gabelli & Co) to 19.47 million iPads (Alexis Cabot of the Apple Finance Board). According to research firm Gartner, HP shipped 14.7 million PCs in the last quarter, down 16 percent from a year ago.
Now, Apple in this last quarter cleared 4.89 million Macs, and its holiday sales are estimated to exceed 5 million units. Combined, iPad and Mac will have sold over 20 million units during the holiday quarter, enough to give the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology powerhouse a few million units lead over HP, the world’s leading computer vendor.
Estimated unit sales translate into a 17.6-percent market share for Apple versus 13 percent for HP, representing a landmark achievement by any measure. Again, that’s assuming tablets are counted as personal computers. As noted by Asymco’s Horace Dediu, Apple has never held the top spot. Its Apple II system peaked at 15.8 -percent share in 1984 and the Mac peaked at 12 percent in 1992. Interesting that Lenovo CEO praised Apple last week, saying about Android on tablets that “We still need to learn something, we still need to improve something”.
Apple has just confirmed via press release that they will be holding their Q4 (fiscal) earnings call for October 18th (found on investor page last month). The call will be held at 5 PM EST, and we’ll be covering it as it happens.
Apple will also be streaming the call over the web. There’s sure to be a lot of iPhone 4S and iOS 5 talk. Stay tuned!
