A participant is holding up the iPhone 16 Pro model at Apple’s new product launch event held in Cupertino, California, last September. AFP Yonhap News
Apple overturned concerns about sluggish sales of its new smartphone ‘iPhone 16 series‘ and recorded its highest ever sales in the third quarter of this year. However, sales in China, the main market, appeared to have decreased.
Apple announced on the 31st (local time) that it recorded sales of $94.93 billion (about 130.4 trillion won) in the third quarter of this year. This is a 6% increase compared to the previous year. This is higher than Wall Street’s estimate of $94.58 billion.
Net profit was $14.73 billion (about 20.2 trillion won). It fell by about 36% compared to $22.96 billion in the third quarter of last year. This is because Apple paid 13 billion euros (approximately 19.3 trillion won) in taxes to the Irish government. Apple previously filed a lawsuit filed by the European Commission last September, claiming that the tax benefits it received from Ireland violated European Union (EU) subsidy regulations. lost the lawsuit. Excluding this one-time cost, Apple’s net profit increased 12% compared to the previous year.
This is because the iPhone sold well. iPhone sales recorded $46.32 billion (approximately KRW 63.7 trillion), a 6% increase from $43.8 billion in the third quarter of last year. This also exceeded the analyst estimate of $45.47 billion.
This performance reflects about a week’s worth of sales of the new iPhone 16, which was released last September. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with American business media CNBC, “Sales of the iPhone 15 were stronger than those of the iPhone 14, and sales of the iPhone 16 were stronger than those of the iPhone 15.”
Initially, there were concerns that sales of the iPhone 16 would be low due to disappointment with the artificial intelligence (AI) function that Apple launched late. However, this performance appears to have dispelled this. Charles Reinhardt, chief investment officer of Johnson Investments, an investment firm and one of Apple’s shareholders, said, “There are aspects of the demand for (iPhone) that have been underestimated,” and added, “It is encouraging that such sales growth was achieved even before it was released with AI features complete.” He said.
However, the effect of Apple’s AI function, ‘Apple Intelligence‘, was not reflected in this quarter’s performance. Apple Intelligence was distributed through the iPhone operating system (iOS) 18.1 update starting on the 28th of last month.
Sales in China decreased. Apple announced that its sales in the Greater China region, including China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, recorded $15.03 billion, a slight decrease compared to the previous year. This performance was below the industry forecast of $15.8 billion.
China is the third most important market for Apple after the United States and Europe. However, its market share is gradually falling behind local brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Vivo. Bloomberg News analyzed, “Apple is still the most valuable company on the planet, but it is facing a slump in the smartphone market, increasing competition in China, and global regulations.”
