Apple’s quarterly earnings call, covering sales from October to December, revealed some pretty interesting facts. The very concept of a “quarterly earnings call” may be enough to bore some folk to tears, even if it did bring in record-breaking earnings for the company, but stick with us as we skim off the dull bits and hit you with three important things we learned this week about Apple and its CEO Tim Cook.
1. iPhone X tops sales
Despite a wild array of conflicting reports from analysts, Apple has revealed the cold hard facts about iPhone X sales. Turns out it’s done pretty well, and Cook confirmed it was the top-selling iPhone every week since its launch back in November. No small feat for a thousand-dollar smartphone. Combined with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, this helped Apple bring in its highest quarterly iPhone revenue of all time.
2. Apple Watch does well too
Beyond iPhone, another product has done pretty well of late too. The Apple Watch S3 helped the smartwatch achieve its best quarterly sales yet, with a 50% increase in revenue over the same period last year. Apple says its “wearables” category (also including AirPods and Beats headphones) contributed the second-most revenue growth after the iPhone range.
3. Cook doesn’t care about upgrades
Since the #iPhoneSlow controversy at the end of last year, Apple has been providing heavily discounted batteries to those with older iPhones. Swapping out an old battery for a new one will improve performance, and will presumably mean users can keep hold of their devices for longer before upgrading. “We did it because we saw it as the right thing to do for our customers,” said Cook. “The effect on upgrades was not in our thought process in deciding what to do.”