Apple Enjoys the Best Sales in the History of the iPhone

Tim Cook CEO of Apple laughing
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Tech giant Apple reported blowout earnings this week, revealing that every single product line was up leading to the firm’s first-quarter with over $100 billion in sales. Apple shipped the largest number of iPhones since smartphone sales were first tracked, despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

CNBC reports that Apple has reported blowout earnings this quarter despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The company reported that every single product line was up in the fourth quarter with over $100 billion in sales.

The company’s iPhone smartphone accounted for nearly 59 percent of the firm’s revenue during the holiday quarter. Sales for the iPhone were up 17 percent year over year totaling a huge $65.6 billion in a single quarter; a huge increase from last year’s holiday quarter when sales were up only 7.6 percent from the year previous.

Research firm IDC estimates that Apple shipped around 90.1 million phones during the quarter, the largest number in a single quarter since IDC started tracking smartphones. Apple’s dominant quarter has also added credence to the “super cycle” investor thesis which hypothesizes that a combination of must-have updates and the natural customer upgrade cycle drives a spike in Apple’s sales growth.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives predicted in a note on Wednesday that the current cycle “should eclipse the previous iPhone record set in FY15, an achievement for the ages in our opinion.” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with CNBC that the company’s iPhone results could have been better if stores had not been forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cook told CNBC’s Josh Lipton: “Taking the stores out of the equation, particularly for iPhones and wearables, there’s a drag on sales.” In a conference call with analysts, Cook stated that the new iPhones were convincing current iPhone users to upgrade and Android users to switch to iPhone.

“Looking at the iPhone 12 family, we saw both switchers and upgraders increase on a year over year basis. And in fact, we saw the largest number of upgraders, that we’ve ever seen in a quarter,” Cook said.

Earlier this month, Apple joined Google in blacklisting Parler from its app store.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com

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