The company reported that Apple earnings showed an early look at iPhone 17 lineup so far, Thursday’s fourth quarter numbers appeared first on Tech Media about iPhone 17 sales. Apple’s quarterly earnings that ended in September ticked the boxes on revenue and iPhone sales, but only just. Apple iPhone sales came in at $49 billion for the fourth quarter, compared to $46.2 billion a year ago, but fell short of a $50.1 billion Wall Street expectation. Total revenue came in at $102.5 billion versus $94.9 billion a year earlier.
Apple claims that both revenues and iPhone numbers for the fourth quarter are records. So-called services revenue (which some analysts track closely) reached a new record of $28.8 billion, up from about $25 billion a year earlier.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Thursday’s earnings call that the company expects the December quarter revenue “to be the best for the company and the best for the iPhone,” hinting at iPhone 17 sales being the best.
Apple’s shares were once again up this week, though only slightly at 3% compared with last Tuesday’s over 6% rise.
Wall Street wants to make sure its largest revenue source is still increasing – even as Apple is suspected of having fallen behind in the AI race. Analysts had been expecting the iPhone 17 lineup that Apple announced near the end of the year to have strong demand, and to generate appropriate sales.
The total sales of the iPhone 17 in China accounted for $14.5 billion in revenue, according to Apple. That figure, however, actually decreased from one year earlier.
In the same time frame in 2024, Apple generated $15 billion of income from its business in that country. Cook said at MacWorld on January 17 that he thinks iPhone income will grow again this quarter in China, owing to how the iPhone 17 is being received.
Yesterday’s figures give an early signal of iPhone sales for all of last year – and especially since its fourth quarter ended on September 27, eight days after the iPhone 17 was announced. However, just possibly, this month and August saw slowing sales as people held off buying until they got an iPhone 17.
The iPhone 17 series outsold its predecessor by 14 per cent in the first 10 days after its release in the United States and China, according to research firm Counterpoint. The base models for all newsales are the iPhone 17 and Pro Max, overwhelmingly so of those statistics. The iPhone Air, which has so far sold around 11,000 units these first few days, isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. UBS has been tracking wait times at retail for Apple iPhone stockists.
The Apple iPhone business, its biggest moneymaker, is in the spotlight again on Wednesday as analysts come together to pore over a company that is currently shifting around one billion dollars per day but has not seen any fundamental change in the past two years. The technology industry has been focused on Apple, due to speculation that another AI-powered gadget will eventually supplant the smartphone.
While analysts have traditionally asked Apple about its AI strategy on recent earnings conference calls, Wall Street was more interested in what was pushing demand for iPhones and how tariffs would affect them. In the third financial quarter, Apple said it expected to incur a $1.4 billion tariff-related cost.
But Cook said he sees “opportunities on the App Store” for AI — when prompted at a press conference today about how chatbots and AI apps could change things, what use will consumers find for them. He also noted that Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered features found in the iPhone and other products made by his company, has begun encouraging people to upgrade their old iPhones.
“I think that Apple Intelligence is one factor, and we’re very upbeat about it becoming a bigger factor; that’s how we’re looking into it,” he said.
This year, Apple postponed an update to Siri that would have brought it closer to both OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini—but left the door open for other competitors like Cortana, Amazon Echo, Bixby, and other virtual assistants.
Rivals like Google, Microsoft and Samsung, meanwhile, continue to pour billions into their AI infrastructure. The revenue comes in a year that has been hard for Apple.
The company is feeling the impact of President Donald Trump’s trade war and is under pressure from him for its iPhones to be made domestically. This year it committed $600 billion to expanding operations in the US. But Thursday’s numbers represent a bounce back and its market value peaked earlier this week in excess of $4 trillion, which shows just how much attention Apple is able not only to attract but also generate.
