Apple posts 33% record revenue growth fuelled by iPhone, Apple Watch, China

Apple has laid claim to record revenue growth at the unveiling of its quarterly results, with CEO Tim Cook pointing at continued iPhone sales, the release of Apple Watch and a growing influence in China as the main reasons for its success.

Cook claimed the tech giant raked in revenues of $49.6 billion, alongside earnings of $10.7bn, at a year-on-year growth rate of 33%, with earnings per share up 45%. More specifically, he said iPhone unit sales are up 35%, claiming a gain in share of all geographic in which it operates. Cook claimed it’s seeing a disproportionate amount of consumers switch from Android devices to iPhone, then pointed at the launch of the Apple Watch as another highlight in what’s been a busy quarter.

The firm is yet to release specific shipment numbers of the Apple Watch, but made a lot of noise about how successful it has been, and how blown away they are.

“We started taking preorders in nine countries on April 10, and demand immediately exceeded supply by a wide margin,” said Cook. “In just the past few days, we’ve been able to catch up with demand, enabling us to expand Apple Watch availability to a total of 19 countries.”

Still, it would be interesting to see those numbers.

CFO Luca Maestri, meanwhile, highlighted the growing influence Apple is having in China, while point out how emerging markets are now responsible for more than a third of the company’s total revenue.

“Our results were especially impressive in Greater China, where revenue more than doubled year over year to over $13 billion,” he said. “Emerging markets overall grew 79% to almost $18 billion and represented 35% of our total company revenue.”

Turning to the Services division, Maestri said revenues from App Store increased 24% and a growth in customers of 19%, and how this contributed towards an overall record growth in revenue for the business.

“We generated over $5 billion in revenue, a new all-time record, and an increase of 12% over last year thanks primarily to strong growth from apps,” he said.

This quarter has been a particularly busy one for Apple, with the launch of three new services in different geographies. As already highlighted, the Apple Watch made its global debut, meanwhile Apple Pay launched in the UK – with Cook now targeting 1.5 million Apple Pay points of presence in the US by the end of the year – and it also launched its revamped music service, Apple Music.

Apple is targeting an upgrade to all of its OS platforms for later this year, with iOS 9, OS X El Capitan (for iMac) and watchOS 2 all due to launch by year end once clearing beta phase.