Well folks, Apple has just put up some mixed numbers in its fiscal Q4 2013 earnings release - $37.5 billion in revenue and $7.5 billion in net profit to be exact - but how exactly did the tech titan fare in terms of hardware sales?
This time around Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones (which it notes is a record for Q4), 14.1 million iPads during the quarter, and 4.6 million Macs.
To put that in a little bit of perspective, the average analyst prediction was for Apple to sell a grand total of 33.4 million iPhones in Q4, along with just under 14 million iPads and about 4.26 million Mac computers. Meanwhile, Apple sold 31 million iPhones, 14.6 million iPads, and 3.8 million Macs last quarter, and 26.9 million iPhones, 14 million iPads, and 4.9 million Macs in the year-ago quarter.
Phew.
So yes, if we're taking those averages as gospel, Apple managed to come out ahead on every one of them. Despite that big iPhone sales boost (thanks in large part to the recent launch of the iPhones 5s and 5c, iPad sales are essentially flat year-over-year - we'll see if that trend sticks once those refreshed models start hitting shelves in November. The nature of the electronics lifecycle means that a cyclical dip or lull is to be expected though - with the holidays right around the corner, the company's Q1 2014 earnings are going to be where the real money is.
Speaking of dips, we saw a few of them last quarter: Apple sold just 14.6 million iPads back then which was heralded as the first yearly iPad sales decline ever, and (perhaps more notably) the average selling price of the iPhone dipped from $613 to $580 sequentially.
This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.
