Apple’s Q3 results announced Friday are one per cent down year over year, even as its installed base of “active devices has reached an all-time high in every geographic segment” and the company has recorded “an all-time record in India” on revenues. In the earnings call with analysts, CEO Tim Cook said Apple has hit a June quarter revenue record in India, growing "strong double digits” with the opening of its first two retail stores in Mumbai and New Delhi during the quarter. But Cook clarified, “It's early going currently, but they're currently beating our expectation in terms of how they're doing. We continue to work on building out the channel and putting more investment in our direct-to-consumer offers as well.” Further, Cook said Apple should ideally be doing really well in India, the second-largest smartphone market in the world. "And while I'm really pleased with our growth there, we still have a very, very modest and low share in the smartphone market. And so I think that it's a huge opportunity for us. And we're putting all of our energies into making that occur.” In a press note, Cook said Apple had "an all-time revenue record in Services during the June quarter, driven by over 1 billion paid subscriptions”, adding that the company saw "continued strength in emerging markets thanks to robust sales of iPhone.” In the earnings call, Cook explained that Apple had recorded "robust sales of iPhone with June quarter total revenue records in India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE”. Adding about India, Cook said, “the performance of the stores we opened in India this spring exceeded our initial expectations”. He also underlined how Apple had joined with global nonprofit Acumen "to improve livelihoods in India through clean energy innovation”, and he reiterated the company’s commitment to its 2030 goal to be carbon neutral across its entire supply chain and life cycle of products. Interestingly, while iPhone, Mac and iPad revenues were down year over year, revenue from wearables, home and accessories went up 2%. Cook said it was "an exciting quarter for Services” as revenue reached $21.2 billion, up 8% year-over-year increase, “better than we expected”. Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, said this past quarter, Apple reached an important milestone and “passed 1 billion paid subscriptions across the services on our platform, up 150 million during the last 12 months and nearly double the number of paid subscriptions we had only 3 years ago”. This makes Apple the largest subscription company in the world.
