Saturday 2 November 2024

Advanced Television: Apple reports record Q4 services revenue

Story from Advanced Television:

Apple has reported financial results for its fiscal 2024 fourth quarter ended September 28th 2024.

The company posted quarterly revenue of $94.9 billion (€87.3bn), up 6 per cent year over year, and quarterly diluted earnings per share of $0.97. Diluted earnings per share was $1.64, up 12 per cent year over year when excluding the one-time charge recognised during the fourth quarter of 2024 related to the impact of the reversal of the European General Court’s State Aid decision.

Apple reported record Q4 services revenue of $24.9 billion, up 12 per cent on the same period last year. Services revenue includes sales of movies and TV shows on iTunes, the App Store, Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple News+.

Overall iPhone revenue grew 6 per cent, with the iPhone 16 (released on September 20th) making a strong impact on the market in just a few days. Sales of the iPhone 15 were “stronger than 14 in the year-ago quarter, and 16 was stronger than 15,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC.

“Today Apple is reporting a new September quarter revenue record of $94.9 billion, up 6 per cent from a year ago,” said Cook. “During the quarter, we were excited to announce our best products yet, with the all-new iPhone 16 lineup, Apple Watch Series 10, AirPods 4, and remarkable features for hearing health and sleep apnea detection. And this week, we released our first set of features for Apple Intelligence, which sets a new standard for privacy in AI and supercharges our lineup heading into the holiday season.”

“Our record business performance during the September quarter drove nearly $27 billion in operating cash flow, allowing us to return over $29 billion to our shareholders,” added Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We are very pleased that our active installed base of devices reached a new all-time high across all products and all geographic segments, thanks to our high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.”

Responding to the results, eMarketer analyst, Jacob Bourne, said: “Apple’s results show its resilience in the face of market headwinds, with iPhone demand improving in China where premium models sales surpassed expectations. The staggered rollout of Apple Intelligence could curtail some of the device upgrade cycle’s momentum, but the combination of robust services revenue growth and healthy iPhone 16 demand positions Apple well for the holiday season. Apple is prioritising execution over speed – a strategy that could prove to be either prudent or potentially costly depending on how quickly competitors advance their AI capabilities. A key question is whether Apple’s cautious AI rollout strategy, while potentially dulling the holiday sales potential, might be advantageous by ensuring a better user experience in the long run.”

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