Fighting competition
The company from Cupertino sold 31.2 million iPhones worldwide in the period from early April to the end of June, compared to 26 million in the same period of 2012. That is a lucky break as the brand has to keep fighting the competition of cheaper smartphones of competitors, with Samsung as new market leader.
The rise in sales of iPhones has to compensate the drop in sales of iPads. For the first time since the launch of the tablet in 2010 they have declined: the past quarter only 14.6 million units were sold, compared to 17 million twelve months ago.
The sales of Mac computers also dropped, from 4 million to 3.8 million. Total sales of Apple did go up by 0.9% to 35.3 billion dollar or 26.7 billion euro.
Notable downturn in China
Apple especially did badly in China, where sales were 14% lower than in the same quarter of 2012. The technological performances of local, and much cheaper, competitors are on the rise, causing a problem for Apple. Performing strongly in upcoming markets is necessary though, now many developed markets are reaching their point of saturation.
In Europe sales of Apple dropped 8% in the third quarter, when compared to that of 2012. In Asia (excluding China and Japan) the decline was even bigger at 18%. Japan (+27%) and the Americas (+12%) eventually steered sales in a positive direction.
For the fourth quarter Apple is predicting sales between 34 and 37 billion dollar, or 26 to 28 billion euro.
