Apple’s earnings announcements are terrible places to learn about upcoming iPhones, largely because the company adamantly refuses to answer questions about unannounced products. And indeed, the iPhone 14 slated to arrive in the fall never showed up today (July 28) as Apple spoke to Wall Street analysts about its record fiscal third-quarter revenue. of the company which ended in June.
Still, despite the lack of concrete iPhone 14 information at the quarterly earnings call, if I expected an iPhone 14 release date to occur sometime in September at the Apple event, I would feel pretty good after the Apple conference call. And that’s largely because Apple’s upcoming phone releases doesn’t come at all.
If you have a long memory, you might think back to two years ago, when the consequences of the first Covid-19 lockdowns were hitting businesses hard. Apple was not immune, warning investors on this June quarter 2020 earnings call that its iPhone’s usual September release was going to be pushed back. And true to Apple’s word, the iPhone 12 only made its appearance in October, with some models not shipping until November.
There was nothing of that sort of warning in today’s call, with Apple instead focusing on how it had just navigated its way through supply constraints and other headwinds. economic to record sales for its June quarter. Revenue hit just under $83 billion in the June quarter, up just 1.9% from the year-ago period, but a record nonetheless.
“Overall, we are very pleased with the results,” CEO Tim Cook told analysts during the earnings briefing. “And when you think about the number of challenges in the quarter, we’re really pleased with the growth that we’ve put in place.”
A 12% increase in service revenue — all those subscription-based offerings Apple now offers with products like Apple Pay — helped Apple hit its sales record, as did a better-than-expected iPhone quarter. Apple sold nearly $40.7 billion worth of smartphones in the quarter, a 3% increase over the previous year which the company attributed to the continued warm reception of the iPhone 13 lineup and the fact that smartphones have not been confronted with the same supply constraints that affect the Mac and iPad business. .
It was Apple’s forecast for the quarter ending in September — the same timeframe when the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro are likely to appear — that really caught my eye. Apple told analysts it expects year-over-year revenue growth to accelerate from the June quarter with fewer supply constraints than it has been faced lately. While these latest indications likely apply to products already shipped by Apple, it’s not too important to assume that soon-to-be-launched products, like this year’s iPhone release, might be fine.
This would contrast quite a bit with some of the rumors that have been circulating recently, especially around the iPhone 14 Max. It’s the 6.7-inch phone likely to replace the mini model in Apple’s lineup this fall. Some leaks have suggested that the new model lags behind the iPhone 14 Pro Max when it comes to display supplies – the larger iPhone 14 Pro model is expected to feature the same 6.7-inch panel as the iPhone 14 Max – raising fears that at least some iPhone 14 debut could be pushed back.
At the moment, that doesn’t appear to be the case, at least given Apple’s lack of warning and its repeated assurances that it’s successfully addressing supply issues with its other product lines.
We’ve circled September 13 in pencil on our calendars as the likely day of Apple’s iPhone announcement. There’s nothing I heard in Apple’s latest earnings call that makes me want to pull out the gum.