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Just when most people thought that Apple had already conquered the world with its iPhones, the company found another greenfield place to sell them: China.
Well, there is still Antarctica, but the upside isn’t quite the same.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based device maker revealed Oct. 27 in its fiscal year-ending earnings report that it added an extra $12.52 billion in income from selling various products in the communist People’s Republic —which includes Hong Kong—for the first time during the past three months.
All those new sales helped Apple gross a massive $51.5 billion in Q4 2015 revenue, up 22 percent over a year ago.
Net income was $11.12 billion—up 31 percent—factoring in an average profit margin of 39.9 percent. iPhone revenue brought in $32.21 billion, with unit sales at a record 48.7 million—24 percent more than it sold a year ago, when it vended 39.3 million of the devices.
Using an old-school calculator, eWEEK has determined that Apple sold 541,111 iPhones a day worldwide during the 90-day period. One could safely ascertain that demand was high.
The iPhone has been Apple’s most successful product since its introduction in 2007, and it has become even more strategic to company success since the 2014 introduction of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The larger-screen smartphones have become Apple’s best-selling products in its 38-year history.
Breaking the Q4 numbers down a bit more, the company sold $10.58 billion worth of its products in Europe; customers in the Americas spent $21.77 billion this past quarter.
All is not perfect in the Kingdom of Apple. iPad revenue in Q4 was $4.28 billion, with unit sales of 9.88 million. Sales dropped 20 percent from the previous year—the seventh successive quarter showing sales have fallen from the previous year and below analyst estimates.
Macintosh PC sales did well, totaling $6.88 billion, with sales rising 3.4 percent to 5.71 million units, a record.
Income from services, which includes iTunes and Apple Pay, came to $5.09 billion.
Revenue from other products, which includes the Apple Watch, the revamped TV streaming box and Beats Music, was $3.05 billion. In four quarterly reports since the Watch was launched a year ago, Apple has yet to break out its sales numbers. Is it not selling quite as much as expected?
Nonetheless, suffice to say that no other company in the world has more billion-dollar product lines than Apple.
Looking ahead to the 2015 holiday buying season, Apple is planning for its usual gross margin of between 39 percent and 40 percent, and it expects revenue of between $75.5 billion and $77.5 billion. Wall Street analysts had projected 39.8 percent and $77.14 billion.