For people interested in the financial sector, April signifies an important time of the year, because companies report quarterly or annual financial results around this time. If you’ve been a regular reader of Redmond Pie, you know that we as a tech blog hold a certain interest in the performance of Cupertino giant, Apple Inc., and today, when the company reported its second quarter results for fiscal year 2013, we couldn’t help taking a look. Let’s share with you how Apple Inc. performed in this area this time around.
The highlight of second quarter results remains Apple’s stellar $43.6 billion in total quarterly revenues, closing with a net profit of $9.5 billion for the period. In year over year comparison, the results are slightly averse, with an increase in revenues from last year’s $39.2 billion but decrease in net profit from $11.6 billion in the same quarter last year. Gross margin also saw a drop, going down from 47.4% in the previous comparison period to 37.5% in the second fiscal quarter for 2013.
Overall, while the company continues to thrive and report good profits, the trend is slight downhill.
Looking at the sales volume, iPhone sales increased by 2.3 million units in this quarter. Apple sold a total of 37.4 million iPhones in the second quarter, which continues to be Apple’s consistently-successful product. iPad sales saw an even bigger jump, with the Cupertino company managing to sell 19.5 million units in this quarter, compared to a mere 11.8 million in the year-ago period. The trend clearly indicates that not only iPad and iPhone continue to contribute most to Apple’s revenue stream, but also that the latter is still the king of the tablet arena.
Mac sales, on the other hand, took a dive, with the company breaking even with just under 4 million units sold as compared to an exact reported 4 million in the second quarter 2012.
Apple Inc.’s CEO, Tim Cook, was pleased with the consistently good performance of the iPhone and iPad, and attributed a good deal of the March quarter revenues to both these products. Apple’s cash balance, too, closed in strong for the March quarter at $145 billion, making it evident that the company isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Analysts had criticized Apple earlier of focusing too much on its iOS line up of products, claiming that it would hurt the company in the longer run. If you ask me, iPhone has been around for almost 6 years now, and if there’s anything that I’ve seen so far, it has shaped the whole smartphone market as we see it today. If these results are indicative of anything, it’s the criticism being wrong and misguided, and Apple’s special focus towards iOS platform seems to be paying off well in the company’s favor. Even just the iPad sales clearly show that no Android tablet has even the remotest chance of dethroning the undisputed champion anywhere in near future. Cutting the whole story short; Apple clearly blew past what analysts had previously predicted, prior to the earnings call.
The full contents of Apple’s second quarter 2013 press release, as well as financial statements, can be found on Apple’s official website.
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