On October 31st local time, Apple Inc. (AAPL) announced its Q4 2024 results as of September 28th, with revenue of $94.93 billion, a year-on-year increase of 6%, and net profit of $14.736 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 36%.
It is reported that the decline in net profit is mainly due to the impact of a one-time income tax expense of $10.2 billion, which was previously required by the European Union to be paid by Apple.
Divided by region, Greater China remains the only market where Apple's revenue has declined year-on-year, with revenue of $15.033 billion for this quarter, falling short of analysts' expectations of $15.8 billion, but the decline has narrowed.
To further boost sales, Apple has also participated in the "Double 11" promotion of domestic e-commerce, which is the first official channel price reduction since the release of the iPhone 16 series. However, the sales driven by the domestic e-commerce promotion were not directly reflected in this financial report.
Looking ahead, during the earnings call, Apple expects to achieve "low to median single digit" revenue growth in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.
From October 30th to November 1st, Apple's US stock market has fallen for three consecutive trading days, with a cumulative decline of 4.6%.
iPhone revenue increased by 5.5% year-on-year
Apple Smart has been launched
In terms of specific business segments, iPhone remains Apple's undisputed revenue driver. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Apple's revenue from iPhones was $46.222 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.5%, exceeding analysts' expectations.
According to data released by research firm Counterpoint, global smartphone sales increased by 2% year-on-year in the third quarter of this year; In terms of manufacturers, Samsung and Apple had the same year-on-year sales in the quarter, with Apple becoming the top selling brand in September, thanks to the early release of the iPhone 16.
Canalys data shows that in the third quarter of this year, Samsung narrowly defeated Apple and occupied the first place in the market, while Apple's market share reached 18%, ranking second.
Canalys analyst Runar Bjrhovde emphasized, "In the third quarter of this year, Apple's shipment volume reached the highest level in the same period of the year, and it has never been so close to the position of global shipment number one. Despite the mediocre initial response, with Apple Intelligence expanding into new markets and supporting more languages, it is expected that the iPhone 16 will help Apple maintain strong growth in 2024 and continue its development momentum into the first half of 2025
Earlier this week, the long-awaited Apple Intelligence finally arrived. On October 28th, Apple released iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and MacOS 15.1 Sequoia, all of which support Apple Intelligence and have launched a series of new AI features.
Among them, in iOS 18.1, the functions of Apple Intelligence are mainly reflected in areas such as writing, Siri assistant, photos, notifications, etc. The update focuses on improving users' daily interaction, efficiency management, while ensuring privacy and security. For example, in terms of interaction, Siri supports voice and typing input. After the user inputs, Siri will automatically provide some suggestions, and these suggestions will change in real time according to the user's input. Meanwhile, users can also request the system to call ChatGPT in response while using Siri and a range of applications. In addition, Apple Intelligence can also recognize text content and generate intelligent replies in email and messaging apps.
However, Apple will first launch this feature in the English version of the US region and plans to expand it to more languages and regions in the coming months. However, as of now, Apple has not announced any artificial intelligence partners in China, so the launch of Apple Intelligence in the Chinese market still needs to wait.
With the launch of Apple Smart, we are ushering in a new era of iPhone. The sales of iPhone 15 are stronger than those of iPhone 14 in the same period last year, while iPhone 16 is even stronger than iPhone 15 Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the earnings conference.
Just last month, Cook visited China for the second time this year. He shared in detail the details of his visit on social media and took the opportunity to promote multiple Apple products, demonstrating Apple's emphasis on the Chinese market. At Sina, when asked when Apple Intelligence will enter the Chinese market, Cook responded by saying, "We are working hard to promote it, and there is a very specific regulatory process behind it. We need to go through this process and hope to bring it to Chinese consumers as soon as possible.
However, whether Apple Intelligence can drive the growth of the iPhone 16 series after its launch still needs further observation. Guo Mingchi, a well-known analyst at Tianfeng International, recently stated on social media that from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first half of 2025, the iPhone 16 (series) will cut approximately 10 million orders. As a result, the production of iPhone 16 (series) in the second half of this year decreased to about 84 million units (previously about 88 million units). Some market participants are optimistic that Apple Intelligence will dramatically boost iPhone shipments in the short term, but Apple's decision to cut orders at this time may mean that there is not much chance for this optimistic expectation to be realized in the short term.
Guo Mingchi also said, "I believe that Apple is the brand with the best opportunity to succeed in device side (terminal) AI, and I also look forward to the long-term trend that Apple Inteligence is expected to become a popular paid service. But the significant increase in iPhone shipments may require more innovative hardware combinations to achieve
In terms of hardware other than iPhone, Mac's revenue reached $7.744 billion in the fourth quarter, a year-on-year increase of 1.7%; The revenue of iPad was 6.95 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%; The revenue from wearable devices, home furnishings, and accessories was $9.042 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 3%; The revenue from the service was 24.972 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%. It is worth noting that in recent years, the service industry has been a major highlight of Apple's performance. This quarter, Apple's software services gross profit margin was 74%, continuing to remain high and serving as a stabilizer for the company's performance.
The decline in the Greater China region has narrowed
In terms of specific regions, Apple's revenue in the fourth quarter increased year-on-year in all markets except for Greater China.
Among them, revenue from Greater China was $15.03 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 0.34%, and lower than analysts' expectations. Canalys data shows that in the third quarter of this year, Apple's shipments in the Chinese market decreased by 6% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Greater China has become the only market for Apple to decline. In the third quarter of 2024, the Greater China region saw a year-on-year decline of 6.5%, while other regional markets saw year-on-year growth.
The reporter noticed that in the first and second fiscal quarters of 2024, Apple's Greater China region experienced year-on-year declines of 13% and 8.1%, respectively. Judging from the decline in the fourth fiscal quarter, it has significantly narrowed compared to the beginning of the year. Whether there will be a turning point in the next quarter still needs further attention.
Outside of Greater China, Apple's largest market, the Americas, had fourth quarter revenue of $41.67 billion, a year-on-year increase of 3.86%; The revenue of the second largest market, Europe, was 24.924 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 10.96%; Japan's revenue was 5.926 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 7.65%; The revenue from other Asia Pacific regions was 7.384 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 16.62%.
Looking at the entire 2024 fiscal year, Apple achieved revenue of $391.035 billion, an increase of 2% compared to $383.285 billion in the 2023 fiscal year; The net profit was $93.736 billion, a decrease from $96.995 billion in the 2023 fiscal year.
Reporter | Wang Jing
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