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Apple services stand out as bright spot in otherwise rough Q2

Services revenue was perhaps one of the few comforts for Apple in its second-quarter financial results shared on Tuesday, growing 20 percent year-over-year to $5.99 billion, setting an all-time record for the company.

"We are very happy with the continued strong growth in revenue from services, thanks to the incredible strength of the Apple ecosystem and our growing base of over one billion active devices," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a prepared statement.

As usual, the company's unaudited data summary lumped all services together, rather than breaking down individual sources. The category does, however, include everything from iTunes, the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud through Apple Pay and licensing income.

The rest of Apple's second quarter was largely disappointing, with overall revenue down 13 percent to $50.557 billion. All of the company's major product segments — iPhone, iPad, and Mac — declined in terms of shipments and revenue. The iPhone, Apple's mainstay, saw shipments fall by almost 10 million units, with revenue down 18 percent to $32.857 billion.

Services growth was likely connected to Apple Music. It now has over 13 million subscribers, up 2 million during the quarter. The company is still behind Spotify, which in March had over 30 million paying customers, plus many more people on its ad-based tier.



21 Comments

brakken 11 Years · 687 comments

The honeymoon is over. Now we will see how many people stay with smartphones as a technology going forward. 

cali 10 Years · 3494 comments

Which poster was it on AI who complained that Apple was hiding something by focusing on services last quarter?

Well Apple was serious and they did a great job!

avidthinker 9 Years · 88 comments

brakken said:
The honeymoon is over. Now we will see how many people stay with smartphones as a technology going forward. 

And what do you opine that people switch to going forward?  Moleskines and etch-a-sketches?

entropys 13 Years · 4316 comments

sog35 said:
Services is the future of growth for Apple.

....
The big growth in the future will come from services. With services growth Apple can increase revenues by 100%
......
I can see a couple of massive services acquistions by Apple in the next year.

iCloud needs a lot of work, a real lot of work. Buying in quality and innovations might work, as long as the integration is properly executed.  I don't think Apple has a good history here, and Apple Music and iTunes are an example of that.  Too much needs figuring out, instead of just being intuitive.

apple ][ 13 Years · 9225 comments

sog35 said:

cali said:
Which poster was it on AI who complained that Apple was hiding something by focusing on services last quarter?

Well Apple was serious and they did a great job!
That was Rogifan.

And in another thread he's still adamant that Cook 'walked away' from taking about services.

Not that it really matters much to the topic at hand, but for the sake of accuracy, I believe that "he" is actually a she. :#