Apple continues to grow iPhone sales in India amid global dip

One Thing Today in Tech

Apple, last week, reported another quarter of revenue decline, on a year-on-year basis, but also one where the decrease was significantly narrower than nine months ago, amid heightened global uncertainties.

The three months to Sep. 30, which is Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter, was also the iPhone maker’s best quarter in India, ever.

“We achieved an all-time revenue record in India,” CEO Tim Cook told analysts and investors in a conference on Thursday last week. Apple shipped a record 2.5 million iPhones to India in the three months ended Sep. 30, according to an estimate from Hong Kong based market researcher, Counterpoint Technology Market Research, last week.

After more than a decade of hits and misses, that’s the best quarter Apple has seen in India, ever. Counterpoint and other well-known market researchers such as IDC estimate that Apple could end calendar year 2023 with sales of 8-9 million iPhones in India, which would represent a growth of between 19.4 percent and 34.3 percent versus the 6.7 million units sold here in 2022.

The company also saw September quarter records in several countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and Vietnam, Cook added.

It was a significant quarter for Apple, for it switched to the type-C USB port from its proprietary lightning connection. The company also rolled out its latest generation of iPhones, new software across products, and reported significant progress on its journey towards making its products planet friendly.

Overall, in addition to the all-time record in India, “iPhone, revenue came in ahead of our expectations, setting a September quarter record,” Cook said. iPhone sales also set quarterly records in many markets, including China Mainland, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, he said.

That, and the sustained strong performance of services, were what helped revenues in a quarter that saw a significant drop in the sale of Mac computers and iPads as well, while Apple continues to lead the tablet market. “In services, we set an all-time revenue record with double-digit growth and ahead of our expectations,” Cook said.

iPhone revenue was $43.8 billion, up 3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Overall, Apple posted quarterly revenue of $89.5 billion, down 1 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.46, up 13 percent year over year. The sales decline has narrowed from the 5 percent fall in the company’s fiscal first quarter.

Apple senior VP and CFO Luca Maestri added that the company’s total installed base of active devices, reached an all-time high across all products and all geographic segments.

While Apple doesn’t call out region-specific numbers, Cook responded to a question by an analyst on the call by saying iPhone sales in India “grew very strong double digits,” in the three months ended Sep. 30.

He provided some additional qualitative commentary: “It’s an incredibly exciting market for us and a major focus of ours. We have low share in a large market and so it would seem that there’s a lot of headroom there.”

The two physical retail stores in India have continued to better than expected. “It’s still early going but they are off to a good start,” he said.