Apple's premium iPhones are making the company money hand-over-fist

Apple has had a bumper year – again – according to its latest earnings report. 

The Cupertino company has pocketed a total revenue of $62.9 billion – over $10 billion more than last year. And it’s all down to the tech giant’s premium iPhones, even though Apple sold no more than what it did last year. 

Analysts expected to see some growth in iPhone sales numbers, but Apple has reported zero percent growth. 

Mixed bag

As we saw last year with the iPhone X, the company’s premium devices seem to be a double-edged sword for Apple’s earnings. While overall iPhone sales have stagnated, Apple has increased the average selling price of its handsets by 28%. 

The expensive iPhone XS and the even more expensive iPhone XS Max went on sale just a week before the September quarter ended, and Apple still did rather well off the back of lacklustre sales. The cheaper iPhone XR was released too late for this earnings report.

Falling numbers

If you’re looking for numbers – Apple sold 46.9 million iPhones in the quarter ending 30 September, compared to the 46.7 million units sold in the same quarter last year. 

The company’s other devices didn’t fair well either – iPad sales have dropped 6% year-on-year, while Mac sales slumped by 2%.

This has led Apple’s CFO Luca Maestri to announce the company will be changing the way it reports its earnings, causing its stock prices to slump by 7%. Apple will no longer reveal the number of units it sells, starting with the December quarter.

“A unit of sale is less relevant to us today than it was in the past,” Maestri said, which seems fair, given consumers are willing to spend top dollar on premium devices.

Sharmishta Sarkar
Managing Editor (APAC)

While she's happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta's main priority is being TechRadar's APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she's also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she's also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom's Guide and T3.