Apple has a problem it doesn't want to talk about
By Seth Fiegerman, CNN Business
cnn.com
(CNN)The era of rapid iPhone growth ended years ago. Now Apple is making a change to ensure it doesn't have to talk as much about that problem.
On a conference call Thursday, top Apple executives laid out their plans to stop disclosing the number of iPhones, iPads and Macs it sells each quarter. It's a move that shocked analysts and only added to jitters around a mixed earnings report.
Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, called the announcement a "jaw dropper" in an investor note Friday morning, particularly because Apple is at a "critical juncture." He said Apple is trying to make up for slowing unit sales growth by charging more for its lineup of devices.
Sure enough, in the three month period ending in September, Apple sold just shy of 47 million iPhones, representing 0% growth in the number of smartphones sold from the prior year. In future quarters, the number of iPhones Apple sells could decline -- but we probably won't know about it.
Apple's Mac and iPad unit sales fell by 2% and 6%, respectively, during the quarter compared to a year ago.
Yet Apple's overall revenue continues to climb from one year to the next. That's in large part because the company is hiking prices across the board. Apple made $8 billion more dollars selling iPhones than it did a year earlier (when it sold almost the exact same number of iPhones).
Apple now has not one but two smartphones on the market -- the XS and XS Max -- with price tags that can exceed $1,000. Apple also recently introduced more expensive iPad Pros and MacBook Airs.
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