During its earnings announcement for its fiscal second quarter of 2013, Apple revealed that it sold 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads. According to those figures, Apple’s iPhone sales are up 6.55 percent year-over-year while its iPad sales are up 65.25 percent year-over-year.
Last quarter, Apple sold a record 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads. Naturally, it’s not fair to compare Q1 2013 and Q2 2013 since the former includes the holiday season and the latter simply doesn’t.
The real comparison is year-over-year. In Q2 2012, Apple sold less of both devices than this quarter: 35.1 million iPhones and 11.8 million iPads.
Q2 2013 industry estimates for iPhones ranged between 35.86 million and 38.18 million while estimates for iPads ranged between 18.15 million and 18.19 million. Apple thus beat estimates for iPads but only met them for iPhones.
It looks as if Apple was able to beat the institutional consensus but not the independent one when it comes to its hottest gadget. This does not bode well for the company, which some believe needs to release a cheaper iPhone in order to maintain its stance in the cut-throat mobile industry.
Nevertheless, it’s important not to lose perspective here. Apple is still selling more iPhones than the comparable quarter last year, and this is despite the fact that the iPhone 5’s successor is widely expected to be coming soon. Furthermore, iPads are still selling like hotcakes.
Apple doesn’t offer numbers for specific types of devices, but we think it’s safe to say the iPad mini is helping keep tablet sales moving forward. Then again, this only adds further fuel to the fire that the company should offer a lower-cost iPhone, assuming that it cares about keeping growth going and Wall Street happy.
See also – Apple Mac sales dip 2% YoY to 3.95 million, iPods sink 27% YoY to 5.6 million in Q2 2013 and Apple increases buyback to $60 billion, and quarterly dividend to 15%
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