Apple’s quarterly results have been placed under the sign of the shortage of components. But another sector created the surprise, that of software revenues which reached records.
At the end of July 2021, Apple has just posted its financial results for the third quarter of its fiscal year. And while the iPhone is still crushing every other industry, its streaming services and other paid subscriptions are making more money than ever before, ranking second in terms of revenue.
This category that Apple soberly nicknamed “services” and which includes subscriptions to AppleTV +, Apple Music as well as revenues from the App Store reported a trifle of $ 17.4 billion over the quarter. That’s more than the combined revenue of Macs and iPads.
Good news in times of scarcity
“The app economy remains an incredible driver of prosperity and opportunity, fueled by the relentless efforts of developers Tim Cook said when presenting the results. In all, the development teams on the App Store generated $ 643 billion this year. According to Tim Cook, there are at least 700 million subscribers to a paid Apple service (Arcade, Music, TV, iCoud). This is 150 million more than a year ago.
Figures which plead in favor of the economic model of the App Store. The growth of over 30% in this product category is also good news for Apple in this time of scarcity.
While hardware sales have not yet fallen due to the semiconductor shortage, Apple still expects these supply difficulties to slow growth for the next 6 months. Remember that this shortage, created under the effect of the health crisis and the rush for computer gadgets that it has triggered, is expected to last until mid-2022. Even Apple is therefore affected despite its historical mastery of production chains.
Software, more important than ever
In this context, the revenues coming from dematerialized products are crucial since they could come to absorb (at least partially) the possible shortfalls caused by the slowdown in the production of iPhone, iPad and Mac. No need for the new iPhone to subscribe to Apple Music or Apple TV.
The recent WWDC conference last June was also an opportunity for Apple to present a new service: iCloud +. This improved version of Apple’s cloud subscription will ship in-house VPN service and several privacy improvements next fall.
The shift towards software that Apple began a few years ago is now more important than ever.
