Forgetting for a minute that Apple obliterated expectations by announcing a truly fantastic 74.5 million iPhone sales while earning an astounding $18 billion in profit, how did the company’s hobby project, the Apple TV, do?
As you may have guessed, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster got that question in during the Q&A section of Apple’s conference call with analyst, to which CEO Tim Cook responded by confirming his company has managed to move about 25 million set-top boxes to date.
It was a “solid quarter” for the device, Cook told Munster, hinting that the Apple TV is still “something we look at.”
The figure is up from the cumulative sales of 20 million units in April 2014. That means Apple added about five million Apple TVs in the three-month April-December 2014 span.
That works out to a monthly sales average of about 625,000 units.
By comparison, Cook said in May of 2013 that Apple had sold 13 million units. So, between May 2013 and April 2014 the device went from 13 to 20 million units, an average of 636,000 units.
Hence, growth rates may be slowing a bit.
Granted, these numbers aren’t something to write home about, especially if you focus on growth rates alone.
On the other hand, with 25 million units sold the Apple TV is far from a hobby — even if Apple has a long way to go before establishing itself in the living room in a much bigger way.
The question is, when’s a new Apple TV model finally coming out?