Apple announced the financial results for its fiscal third quarter of 2017 this afternoon, and the numbers for the 3-month period are outstanding. All metrics were up from the year-ago quarter, including a 7% increase in revenue and 2% increase in iPhone sales.
Following the release of its earnings, CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri hopped on a conference call to talk about Apple’s performance over the last 3 months, and offer up some insights into its future. Here are some of the more interesting points from the call.
Apple has 185 million paid subscriptions across all services. Apple services have added 20 million new subscribers over last 3 months. Walmart deploying 20K+ iPads to employees in the US. iPad sales grew in all geographical segments, with strong double-digit growth in the U.S. and Greater China. CFO Luca Maestri: iPhone channel inventory the lowest in 2.5 years. iPhone ASP (average selling price) at $606, up from $595 in the year-ago quarter. Tim Cook: 2/3 of Apple's employees are in the United States. We'll have more to say about that later in the year. Apple has new advanced $1 billion manufacturing fund for US companies. First $200 million goes to Corning Glass. Tim Cook: I think AR is big and profound. This is one of those things we'll look back at and marvel at the start of it. Apple has brought in talent behind Breaking Bad and The Crown to help with content creation. Cook: In terms of autonomous systems, we're very focused on it from a core tech point of view. We have a large project ongoing, and we're making a big investment in this. Apple retail and online stores saw over 300 million visitors this quarter.Apple's stock is up 6% in after-hours trading on the back of today's strong performance report. If you want to listen to today’s earnings call, a replay will be available here for a limited time.
