On Tuesday, April 2, Apple announced its financial result for FY Q2 2017 which ended on April 1, 2017. According to the results, the Cupertino-based company beat expectations but couldn’t sell the expected number of iPhones as estimated by Wall Street.
Apple’s fiscal 2017 Q2 report
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that, the company saw a kind of delay, especially with the “purchasing behavior” for the iPhones. This may be due to the rumored tenth anniversary edition iPhone 8 arrival rumors. The smartphone is expected to release sometime during 2017.
He also stated that iPhone sale outside greater China grew rapidly.
According to Cook, there were more upgraders and switchers during the first half. Analysts were expecting at least 52 million of the iPhone units to be sold by the end of the March. Whereas, according to the reports, only 50.8 million units of the smartphones were sold by the end of the second quarter. Based on Cook’s assertions, users may be waiting eagerly for the upcoming iPhone 8, instead of investing their money in the older-gen handsets.
The company also saw a decline in its revenues. For the second quarter, the company earned a revenue of $52.9 billion compared to the $50.56 billion it had earned in 2016.
Reason behind the decline
Another reason behind the slide in sales of the iPhone during the quarter was overall decline in the sales of the smartphones, which has fallen to a nine-year low. This was based on the survey reports carried out by 451 researchers. The survey was carried out on 4,075 North American consumers and had been cited by UBS.
One of the main reasons for the decline in the sales of the iPhone was that in China, Apple faced a 14 percent sales decline year over year According to Cook, excluding China, the sales of the handset grew rapidly during the three months which ended on March 2017.
Mixed quarter results, but ray of hope for Apple
The company had a mixed quarter result, but all does not look bleak for the Cupertino-based company.
Apple earned a profit of $11.03 billion from January to March 2017, compared to the 2016 profit of $10.52 billion in the same period. Moreover, sales from the Apple Store went up by 40 percent, with the number of developers increasing by 20 percent.
According to the executives, Apple’s earning at the end of the quarter stood at $256.8 billion in cash. Due to this many investors are advising the company to distribute the amount as a one-time dividend.
