Apple's Switch To M1 Silicon And Rabid iPhone Demand Fueled A Record $123.9 Billion Quarter
The house that Steve Jobs built just recorded its best quarter ever, and current CEO Tim Cook deserves a ton of credit for that. Under his leadership, Apple posted and all-time high $123.9 billion for its fiscal 2022 first quarter (period ended December 25, 2021), which is an 11 percent year-over-year gain. Net income for the quarter tallied $34.6 billion.
There's plenty of credit to go around for Apple's phenomenal performance. In a nod to Cook and his bold move to kick Intel to the curb in favor of building its own Arm-based silicon, Apple generated more revenue from its Mac systems this past quarter than ever before. During an earning call with analysts, Cook attributed the record performance to "customers eager to get their hands on an M1-powered MacBook Air, iMac, or MacBook Pro."
"We've been thrilled with the response from Pro users to the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips and to see how Apple Silicon is blowing them away with its power, performance, and efficiency," Cook said.
Source: Apple
Apple also generated an all-time high in revenue for its iPhone devices, which Cook credited to the iPhone 13 launch. According to Cook, the reaction to the iPhone 13 from both consumers and the press has been "off the charts" and never better for an iPhone product (see our iPhone 13 Pro review for our own thoughts and analysis). Apple doesn't share iPhone shipment figures anymore, but did say that net iPhone sales totaled $71.6 billion for the quarter, up from $65.6 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
Cook also revealed that Apple now has 1.8 billion active devices, up from 1.65 billion last year and 1.5 billion back at the beginning of 2020. He didn't share finer grain details on that 1.8 billion figure, though Apple last year announced it had passed 1 billion active iPhone devices.
"This quarter’s record results were made possible by our most innovative lineup of products and services ever," Cook said in a statement. "We are gratified to see the response from customers around the world at a time when staying connected has never been more important. We are doing all we can to help build a better world—making progress toward our goal of becoming carbon neutral across our supply chain and products by 2030, and pushing forward with our work in education and racial equity and justice."
Like Intel, which is also coming off a record quarter (and record year), Apple has managed to thrive during a pandemic while navigating a chip shortage. Cook told analysts that the chip short has been Apple's "largest issue by far," but that its "fast-moving supply chain" has done a "very good" job.
"The cycle times are very short. There's very little distance between a chip being fabricated and packaged and a product being— going out of factory," Cook said.
Investors reacted positively to Apple's earnings report and Cook's optimism, with shares of the company up nearly 5 percent this morning.
