Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2015 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 28, 2014 to March 28, 2015) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Apple always sees a big decrease in revenue from its first to its second fiscal quarter because Q2 comes right after the holiday quarter. Nevertheless, Apple reported quarterly revenue of $58 billion and net profits of $13.6 billion, which is a record for Apple’s second fiscal quarter. If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha. Apple’s official press release is here.
As always, however, I’m not as interested in the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users. Here are the items that stood out to me:
iPhone
- During the past quarter, Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones. That was the second highest quarter ever of iPhone sales. The most ever was the prior quarter — the late 2014 holiday season — when Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones, but the record before that was 51 million (during the prior year’s holiday quarter). So Apple sold more iPhones in a non-holiday quarter than they did in the holiday quarter just over a year earlier. That certainly tells you something about how interested people are in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook said that Apple is seeing a higher rate of people switching from another brand to the iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus than Apple has seen with previous iPhone models. So a lot of BlackBerry, Android, etc. are users are switching to the iPhone.
- About 20% of people who had been using a previous version of the iPhone have now upgraded to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
- By my count, as of March 28, 2015, Apple had sold over 726 million iPhones since they first went on sale in 2007.
iPad
- The iPad turned five years old this month. Although Apple did see impressive iPad sales in some parts of the world, such as Japan and China, overall Apple sold 12.6 million iPads in the 2015 fiscal second quarter. That’s a big number, but to put in in context, one year ago in the 2014 fiscal second quarter, Apple had sold 16.3 million. There was a similar story last month, so it seems that, so far at least, Apple is selling fewer iPads in 2015 than is did in 2014.
- Cook said that part of the reason for the decline is that folks who might have previously purchased an iPad are now purchasing a Mac or an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.
- Apple CFO Luca Maestri noted that the iPad has consistently been the #1 tablet in companies, and cited a recent Changewave survey that found that among corporate buyers planning to buy a tablet in the next six months, 77% plan to buy iPads. In light of Apple’s partnership with IBM on the iPad (announced in July of 2014), Cook says that he remains a big believer that the iPad will play a major role in companies.
- By my count, as of March 28, 2015, Apple had sold over 271 million iPads since they first went on sale in 2010.
Apple Watch
- The Apple Watch did not go on sale until after the 2015 fiscal second quarter ended, but Apple still had a lot to say about the Apple Watch yesterday.
- Pointing out the obvious, Cook stated that Apple Watch demand is outstripping supply, and he said that Apple is working hard to remedy that.
- Cook did not say how many Apple Watch shipments took place since this past Friday when the first deliveries occurred, but he did say that Apple was able to deliver more customers an Apple Watch since Friday than Apple had originally anticipated.
- Cook also said that Apple is continuing to notify customers that their Apple Watch will arrive earlier than originally estimated. So if you ordered an Apple Watch and think that you still have a long wait, perhaps it will come earlier than you are expecting.
- By late June, Apple plans to start selling the Apple Watch in additional countries, although Apple did not identify which ones. Right now, the Apple Watch is on sale in nine countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US. If Apple is planning to sell to more countries in June, that is some indication that Apple believes that it can start to catch up to demand by then.
- Cook announced that there are now more than 3,500 apps for the Apple Watch. That compares to about 500 apps when the App Store for iPhone was launched, and about 1,000 apps for the iPad when the iPad launched.