Apple will no longer disclose device sales figures

Tom Bedford November 2, 2018

Apple just announced its Q4 2018 earnings results, along with a bombshell — its reports will no longer detail the number of devices sold.

Apple will no longer disclose device sales figures

On a call with investors regarding the report, CFO Luca Maestri announced the decision, saying “our objective is to make great products and services that enrich people’s lives, and to provide an unparalleled customer experience so that our users are highly satisfied, loyal and engaged.”

While to many people this is no significant issue, industry experts often mull over these statistics to understand how one of the tech giant functions. Sales figures are a stable metric by which to measure the health of a company, and by concealing this information Apple is suggesting it’s not doing as well as many thought. The company will continue to report general earnings, however — just not device figures.

Maestri calmed these fears by stating “if you look at our net income during the last three years, if you look at our stock price here in the last three years, there’s no correlation to the units sold in any given period.”

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According to the Q4 earnings report product sales are lower than before, with 6% fewer iPads and 2% fewer Mac devices sold, however overall revenue is up by 20%. This shows that while fewer products were sold, the ever-increasing price of Apple products means the company is still making more money. It’s worth noting, though, that Apple’s newest products – the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and Apple Watch 4 – were only on sale for nine days of the period covered. The iPhone XR missed out completely.

In total Apple earned a whopping $62 million (£48m), $37 million (£28m) of which came from sales of iPhone products. Only the iPad had a bad year, with its $4 million (£3m) sales resulting in a 15% drop in revenue for the tablet.

The sales-blackout will begin in Q1 2019. Apple just announced the iPad Pro 2018, MacBook Air and Mac mini, all of which will be released on 7 November, just in time to be counted for the report.