Apple on Thursday posted yet another record quarter in 2021, closing out its best year ever with revenue of $83.4 billion, up nearly 30 percent year over year. Every category posted gains, though Cook said revenue was affected by supply constraints to the tune of $6 billion.
First the good news. Apple sold a ton of products in the quarter, which saw a week of iPhone 13 sales versus no iPhone 12 sales last year, as well as the iPad mini and ninth-gen iPad. Apple also announced the Apple Watch Series 7 in the quarter, though it didn’t go on sale until October. Last week, Apple launched the new MacBook Pro, which is already backordered for weeks.
Here’s how each category broke down, with the year-over-year percentage increase:
iPhone: $38.9 billion (47 percent)
iPad: $8.3 billion (21 percent)
Mac: $9.2 billion (2 percent)
Wearables: $8.8 billion (12 percent)
Services: $18.3 billion (26 percent)
Sales were up in all regions, with China’s revenue nearly doubling from $8 billion to $14.6 billion. Apple said it also doubled its business in India and Vietnam.
Now the bad news. In the earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said he is “encouraged by progress around the world” but added that manufacturing disruptions would likely be worse in the recent holiday quarter (Apple’s Q1 2022). However, Apple said the next quarter is expected to see bring “very solid year-over-year revenue growth” but declined to offer revenue guidance.
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Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He’s still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.
