Apple bags $52 billion with more to come at Xmas

What do you get when you sell more iPhones, iPads and Macs than ever, as well as the highest ever number of subscribers for your services products? A massive pile of cash, that’s what.

Apple might not have done anything especially innovative or ground breaking for a while, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped it cult-like customers flooding to Apple stores around the world and handing over obscene amounts of cash. And this might only be the tip of the ice berg; Christmas is around the corner and that only means one thing for Apple.

“We’re happy to report a very strong finish to a great fiscal 2017, with record fourth quarter revenue, year-over-year growth for all our product categories, and our best quarter ever for Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

“With fantastic new products including iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, and Apple TV 4K joining our product line-up, we’re looking forward to a great holiday season, and with the launch of iPhone X getting underway right now, we couldn’t be more excited as we begin to deliver our vision for the future with this stunning device.”

$52.6 billion in total revenues, an increase of 12% from the same period in 2016. The iPhone brought in $28.8 billion, iPads generated $4.8bn and Macs bagged $7.1 billion. The services division accounted for $8.5 billion, and even sales of the iPad were up. The money made from any one of these individual products would be on par with many of the world’s largest tech companies; leading the planets largest flock of sheep is big business.

And it’s only going to get bigger.

Over the next three months the team expect revenues between $84 billion and $87 billion, gross margin between 38% and 38.5% and operating expenses between $7.65 billion and $7.75 billion. In short, it is going to continue to cultivate some of the most loyal brand enthusiasts and continue to make a ridiculous amount of cash.

“This was our biggest year ever in most parts of the world with all-time record revenue in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia,” beamed Cook.

But what to look forward to over the next couple of years?

Apple has seemingly reset the standard on how much to charge for phones. Don’t expect the price to drop now the team has demonstrated you can charge that much and the iZombies will continue to flood the ‘genius’ bar. Services is a big area, arguably the main growth engine for the future, and the team claim to be on target to deliver $50 billion in revenue by 2020. Smartwatches will continue to be an area which the team tries to crack. And augmented reality is going to be big.

“The reason I’m so excited about AR is I view that it amplifies human performance instead of isolates humans,” said Cook.

“ I see things that the consumer’s going to love because it’s going to change shopping. I see things that consumers will love on the gaming side and the entertainment side. I see business-related AR apps as well. They’re going to be great for productivity and between small and large business. And I see apps that makes me want to go back to K-12 again and repeat my schooling.”