1 billion iPhones now active on Earth, says Apple

iPhone revenue was a record $65.6 billion in the December quarter, growing 17 per cent year-over-year as demand for the iPhone 12 family was very strong, despite Covid-19 and social distancing measures. 

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the company has hit a new high watermark for its installed base of active devices with growth accelerating. 

"We passed 1.65 billion devices worldwide during the December quarter. iPhone grew by 17 per cent year-over-year, driven by strong demand for the iPhone 12 family and our active installed base of iPhones is now over 1 billion," Cook informed during the earnings call with analysts. 

"The customer response to the new iPhone 12 model's unprecedented innovation from world-class cameras to the great and growing potential of 5G has been enthusiastic even in light of the ongoing Covid-19 impact at retail locations," he added. 

In the US, the latest survey of consumers from 451 Research indicates iPhone customer satisfaction of 98 per cent for the iPhone 12 family. 

iPad and Mac grew by 41 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively. 

"During this quarter availability began for both our new iPad Air as well as the first generation of Macs to feature our groundbreaking M1 chip. The demand for all of these products has been very strong," Cook said. 

Luca Maestri, Senior Vice President and CFO, Apple, said that products revenue was an all-time record of $95.7 billion, up 21 per cent over a year ago. 

Apple achieved an all-time revenue record of $111.4 billion for its December quarter. Net income was $28.8 billion, up $6.5 billion or 29 per cent over last year. 

"Our services set an all-time record of $15.8 billion growing 24% year-over-year. We established new all-time records in most service categories and December quarter records in each geographic segment," Maestri said. 

"Paid subscriptions continued to grow nicely and we exceeded our target of 600 million paid subscriptions before the end of calendar 2020." 

During the December quarter, Apple added more than 35 million sequentially and now has more than 620 million paid subscriptions across the services on its platform, up 140 million from just a year ago. 

Wearables, home and accessories grew 30 per cent year-over-year to $13 billion, setting new all-time revenue records in every geographic segment. 

Mac set a December quarter record for revenue of $8.7 billion, up 21 per cent over last year. 

This performance was driven by strong demand for the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, all powered by our brand new M1 chip.