Apple calls India 'huge opportunity' as firm posts record quarter globally

Tech giant reports 'terrific' surge in expanding Indian market, riding on sales of devices and services

Apple’s global revenues hit a record in the December quarter and clocked double-digit growth in India where sales of iPhones and other devices hit the highest number, said the American tech giant on Thursday.

 

“It was a terrific quarter in India,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer. “We did set a quarterly revenue record during the December quarter, and to go a little further down, we set quarterly revenue records on iPhone and Mac and iPad, and an all-time revenue record on services. We really like what we see there.”

 

India is the world’s second-largest smartphone market and the fourth-largest for personal computers, he said. “And we still have, despite a very nice growth history, we have a modest share there, and so we think there’s a huge opportunity for us there, and we could not be more excited about it. The other thing that I would point out is that the majority of customers that are buying iPhone and Mac and iPad and Watch are all new to that product, and so it speaks very well to the opportunity there.”

 

 

The company posted quarterly revenue of $143.8 billion, up 16 per cent year on year. Diluted earning per share was $2.84, up 19 per cent from the previous year.

 

About the use of Apple’s products, Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said: “We’re seeing strong double-digit growth in the installed base in India as well, which is really encouraging.”

 

iPhone revenue was $85.3 billion, up 23 per cent year on year, driven by the iPhone 17 family. “iPhone saw strength around the world, reaching all-time revenue records in many of the markets we track, including the US, Greater China, Latin America, Western Europe, the Middle East, Australia and South Asia, as well as a December quarter record in India,” Parekh said.

 

Mac revenue was $8.4 billion, down 7 per cent from the previous year. “As we described in the last call, we faced a very difficult comparison against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac Mini and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter. Despite this difficult comparison, we continued to see growth in several emerging markets, including Brazil, India, Malaysia, Vietnam and others.”