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Apple to Stop Providing Unit Sales Data for iPhone, iPad and Mac Starting With December Quarter

Thursday November 1, 2018 2:37 pm PDT by Juli Clover
During today's fourth quarter earnings call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri announced that going forward, Apple will not provide unit sales of iPhone, iPad, and Mac during its quarterly earnings reports.

This marks a major change to the way that Apple reports data and it will make estimating iPad, Mac, and iPhone product sales a more difficult task. Apple is perhaps making this change because its unit sales are decreasing while revenue is growing due to rising ASPs.


This quarter, for example, iPhone unit sales were flat at 46.9 million, but iPhone revenue was up 29 percent.

According to Maestri, Apple does not believe that unit sales over the course of a 90-day period are an indicator of the underlying strength of its business.

Apple also plans to rename the "Other Products" category to "Wearables, Home, and Accessories," a change that will also be made in the December quarter. This category will continue to include the Apple Watch, Apple TV, AirPods, HomePods, Beats headphones, and more.

Tag: earnings
[ 175 comments ]


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Quu
7 months ago
Apple can't wait to shout from the rooftops when things are "fastest selling iPhone ever" but when the sales are flat, lets hide all the numbers I guess.
Rating: 63 Votes
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CrapShack
7 months ago
NOT HIDING ANYTHING. There is no legal requirement to announce unit sales. It's a legacy from the Jobs days when Apple was a MUCH smaller company. The individual unit numbers are so huge now it's a useless metric. Earnings per share - that's all we need. Maybe the days of AAPL beating top AND bottom line and having the stock DROP because of a miss on "whisper number" unit sales are over.

Amazon has never announced unit sales on any of their products. We've never been told how many Kindles get sold, how many Prime members they have, how many Echos are in use - etc etc
Rating: 50 Votes
Avatar
Quu
7 months ago

Or maybe they just don’t want their stock affected by numbers not meeting some ridiculous analyst estimates.

It’s a bold move in this industry but we know they sell enough and make enough.


I feel personally that they've reached a point where the products don't offer enough value. Their stuff has always been expensive but it's now reaching such a high level that for the first time in almost twenty years I'm considering alternative products and ecosystems, I'm talking Windows + Android.

I'm not saying Apple is doomed, I don't think they're in trouble. But I do feel like they are entering this phase of their life where they're pushing a boulder up a mountain (high revenue and profit margins) and eventually it's going to get to the top and quickly go down the other side as consumers exit the brand due to it being too expensive and not offering the things Apple had been known for in the past (ease of use, functionality, great design and intuitiveness etc).

To me the company now more than ever cares about profit beyond all else. In the past I really truly believed they cared about making great products. Now I think they only care about making great margins and everything else is secondary to that goal.

I am not currently an Apple stock holder but I have been in the past. I think they're probably 75% of the way up that mountain I just spoke about, but this is all just my opinion I'm sure many here will disagree with me and that's perfectly fine.
Rating: 35 Votes
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benshive
7 months ago
Not surprised. It's not like transparency has ever really been Apple's thing.
Rating: 30 Votes
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DrumApple
7 months ago
The bigger they are, the harder they fall...
Rating: 27 Votes
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keysofanxiety
7 months ago

What’s with these hateful commenters rushing to be the first posters?


Post quickly, get the anti-Apple jab in early, and rack up some easy likes.

It’s step 1 in the MacRumors rulebook.
Rating: 25 Votes
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Bawstun
7 months ago
Beginning of the end. Cook is a short-term disaster. He has no vision. Change, NOW! Before it is too late.
Rating: 16 Votes
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keysofanxiety
7 months ago

Apple can't wait to shout from the rooftops when things are "fastest selling iPhone ever" but when the sales are flat, lets hide all the numbers I guess.


Or maybe they just don’t want their stock affected by numbers not meeting some ridiculous analyst estimates.

It’s a bold move in this industry but we know they sell enough and make enough.
Rating: 14 Votes
Avatar
weup togo
7 months ago
I've been crunching my own numbers on Apple's earnings for over 20 years. Every few years, they rearrange their categories and reporting structure to make it impossible to do any long term trend analysis. But this is something above and beyond all prior obfuscations.

Their excuse is facially bull**** too. In the same call when they brag about 2 billion iOS devices shipped and 100 million active Mac users they lie through their teeth that category revenue is all that matters. Make no mistake, this is an act of weakness, not strength. Apple's long-term strength has never been measured by how much revenue it can extract from each customer, but from how many customers it has. Revenue is a byproduct of popularity, not a replacement for it.
Rating: 12 Votes
Avatar
Quu
7 months ago

We've reached peak iPhone (and peak smartphones) and Apple realizes analysts are obsessed with unit numbers instead of overall financial numbers. There's going to be some pain for a little while and then WS will move on....and then concentrate on just the numbers...


The thing is, markets depend on ever growing revenue. Right now Apple has that steady revenue increase due to them increasing the iPhone price while reducing the number of individual iPhones sold.

But that trend cannot continue forever. At a certain point the price will be so high that the number of people buying them will decline to a level that increasing the price doesn't create any extra revenue it just stays flat.

The concern is of course if Apple is hiding sales numbers that they are trying to mask the time frame on which iPhone revenue stagnates. It's quite simple you either sell more units or you raise the price but you can't raise the price forever and you can't force consumers to buy something they don't want. Apple has to make the iPhone more appealing before they hit the price ceiling where most consumers refuse to purchase an iPhone. They're not quite there yet but it seems inevitable.
Rating: 11 Votes

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