Apple has just posted its second quarter earnings for the 2013 financial year and while it made less money than during the same period last year, it still posted astonishing profits of $9.5 billion (£6.23bn).
In the three months leading up to March 31 2013, Cupertino sold 37.4m iPhone, and 19.5m iPad devices, which is more than the same period in 2012, and helped to bring in revenue of $43.6 billion (£28.6bn).
Granted, today’s figures are lower than the 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads the company pumped out in the previous quarter, but when Christmas is considered as well as the launch of the iPhone 5, iPad mini and iPad 4 during that period, the drop off was to be expected.
In other areas of the company, Apple will be pleased that Mac sales are bucking the overall PC industry mega-slide, remaining relatively steady, while falling to just under 4 million.
However, iPod continued to tumble with sales falling 50 per cent since the previous quarter and 27 per cent compared with the same period last year
The report does show the slowest rate of growth Apple has posted in many a year, following record quarter after record quarter, but it is not the apocalypse many analysts, with personal celebrity to be found through talking-up Apple’s demise, have forecast.
Instead, it’s probably fair to say that the company may have peaked and might not be smashing records every three months, in light of more intense competition.
However when a company is sitting on a wedge of cash like Apple’s $145 billion (£95 billion), it’s hard to take the Wall Street scaremongering too seriously.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
