As we mentioned last month, Apple will today host its quarterly conference call to discuss its earnings report from the third quarter of its fiscal year: this includes 35.2 million iPhones, 13.2 million iPads, 2.9 million iPods, and 4.4 million Macs. Apple reported today that it earned $37.4 billion in revenue during its Q3 period.
This will be the first quarterly conference call with analysts and investors since Apple announced its plans to acquire Beats Electronics and Beats Music in a $3 billion deal that it expects to clear regulatory approval by the end of the current quarter in September. Today’s call also will be the first since Apple’s developer conference in June as well as Apple’s announced partnership with IBM to bolster the iPhone and iPad effort in the enterprise. It also marks Luca Maestri’s first call as CFO since Peter Oppenheimer’s retirement, although Maestri has been present on past calls.
Investors and analysts will surely focus on Apple’s new product plans for the remainder of this year, though, and we’ll be listening to bring you coverage starting at 5pm EST/ 2pm PST.
–Earnings report is out!
-Commence twenty minutes of high fidelity hold music notably not by Dre… Shazam integration with Siri in iOS 8 doesn’t recognize the song.
-You can listen along to the call at home here. Not yet playing on iTunes Radio… Someone should notify Eddy Cue. (These do hit iTunes after hours though if you’re into that sort of thing.)
-12 minute warning!
-Anyone know if that’s Craig Federighi playing the piccolo? 4 minute warning!
-The call is kicking off! Tim Cook and Luca Maestri will be speaking first, forward looking statements included, yada yada yada, then Q&A.
Apple delivers upbeat earnings music
— Ina Fried (@inafried) July 22, 2014
-Tim Cook speaking now, record number of people watched WWDC keynote: 20 million people viewed the live stream.
-Cook describing Apple’s new programming language Swift, says allows for new categories of apps
Tim Cook giving a TL;DR WWDC
— Michael Steeber (@MichaelSteeber) July 22, 2014
-Cook says 29 major car brands integrating CarPlay, mispronounces Hyundai (should rhyme with Sunday), Cook now recapping on HealthKit, HomeKit, and mentioning IBM partnership to work together to tackle the enterprise, says Swift will help with bringing these apps to iPhone and iPad
-Now talking earnings… record June revenue, attributing iPhone sales to BRIC countries
-Cook: iTunes is fastest growing business thanks to strong results from the App Store
-Cook now discussing customer satisfaction with iPad rather than focusing on sales
“iPad sales met our expectations.” http://t.co/NhAJ0OlvyA
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) July 22, 2014
-Cook: IBM will be catalyst for future iPad growth
-Now discussing Beats deal including streaming music service
–29 acquisitions since fiscal year 2013, 5 since end of March quarter (doesn’t include Beats)
-Cook: Incredible pipeline of new software and services
-Now Apple CFO Luca Maestri is recapping the earnings report…
-Maestri noted high iPhone sales despite rumors of new products which can lead to lower sales
-Maestri notes iPad growth in particular in the Middle East
Apple has a healthy iPad business.
Conclusion: The Post-PC era is over.
Gotta love logic.
— Kontra (@counternotions) July 22, 2014
-Says 100,000 iPads are used by government officials in Sweden
–13 million iPads sold to education customers globally, notes new iTunes U app with features for students and teachers
-Notes 12% revenue year-over-year for iTunes growth in part thanks to App Store
–75 billion cumulative App Store downloads, $20 billion paid to developers with almost half paid in the last 12 months
-Maestri repeats that Apple expects Beats acquisition to close by the end of this end (September), will report earnings in 2015
-Q&A kicking off with Maestri taking questions, Tim Cook remains on the call…
-Cook discussing new product categories and its strategy with the iPad, says tablet market is still young and Apple plans to innovate significantly with the iPad, talking about business as an opportunity for growth with iPad, think IBM partnership
-Cook now talking growth in China, again citing iTunes Software and Services category success thanks to App Store…
-Cook: Still in the process of rolling out in China
-Cook asked about impact of trade-in programs on iPhone sales… Cook answers that trade-in programs are not cannibalizing new device sales, are actually hugely beneficial for the Apple ecosystem… says his gut feeling is cannibalization is low and Apple products have higher resale value, encourages customers to buy more Apple products…
Cook: iPhone is up 10% in Europe.
— Horace Dediu (@asymco) July 22, 2014
-Cook now discussing value-added tax in Japan, carriers receiving guidance from regulators to stop incentivizing customers to swap from other carriers at higher amounts, dampened market in Japan, Cook doesn’t believe will see much of a share change from this…
-Cook asked about three tiers of iPhone, asked to discuss iPhone 5c performance… Cook says Apple doesn’t divide out iPhone models but iPhone 5c growth compared to iPhone 4s year over year had highest growth in that mid tier…
-Cook addressing new iPhone pricing models tried by carriers, believes less than 1 in 4 iPhones sold on traditional subsidy plan, new upgrade options make buying new iPhones easier when new products are announced…
-Cook asked about Beats deal, IBM partnership, what he sees in Apple that is changing with these big deals… Cook repeating that mobile in enterprise is big opportunity… Apple always looking in the acquisition space, with Beats Apple gets incredible subscription service, rare set of talent, access to fast growing business with headphones and earphones, culturally matched with music…
Apple estimates that only 1/4 of iPhones in the USA were sold on a traditional subsidy plan. Thinks faster upgrade plans are good of Apple
— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 22, 2014
-Cook asked about app distribution policy and the App Store with enterprise, Cook says Apple has no plans to change policy, all for taking friction out of the experience, not adding it… Cook mentioned exciting goal of moving from 20% to 60% in enterprise…
-That’s a wrap! The recording of the call will hit iTunes through Apple’s podcast feed this evening. Thanks for following along! (“Don’t Ask Why” by Ron Sexsmith playing out the call according to Shazam!)
