Apple Says It Will Stop Reporting Unit Sales for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

During its Q4 FY18 earnings call, Apple announced that it will no longer report unit sales data for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Starting with the December quarter, we will no longer be providing unit sales data for iPhone, iPad and Mac. As we have stated many times, our objective is to make great products and services that enrich people's lives, and to provide an unparalleled customer experience so that our users are highly satisfied, loyal and engaged.

As we accomplish these objectives, strong financial results follow. As demonstrated by our financial performance in recent years, the number of units sold in any 90-day period is not necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business. Furthermore, a unit of sale is less relevant for us today than it was in the past, given the breadth of our portfolio and the wider sales price dispersion within any given product line.


Luca Maestri added some more details in response to a question from Shannon Cross.

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Shannon S. Cross - Cross Research LLC
Okay. Thank you. And then, I just want to talk a little bit about the pullback in terms of guidance from a unit perspective. I understand you don't want to give guidance because of 90 days is a short period of time and it can fluctuate, but what kind of qualitative commentary do you think you'll be able to provide? Because it's obviously investors have spent the last however many years going P times Q. So, how should we think about what we can expect and sort of how are you going to manage this process as we go through? I know it's all our job to forecast, but.

Luca Maestri - Apple, Inc.
Yes. Let me walk you through the rationale that we've used and then I'll talk about this qualitative commentary that you were mentioning. As I said, right, our objective is to make great products, provide the best customer experience, and get our customer satisfied, engaged and loyal to our ecosystem.

When you look at our financial performance in recent years, take the last three years, for example, the number of units sold during any quarter has not been necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business. If you look at our revenue, given the last three years, if you look at our net income during the last three years, if you look at our stock price here in the last three years, there's no correlation to the units sold in any given period.


As you know very well, in addition, our product ranges for all the major product categories have become wider over time and therefore, a unit of sale is less relevant for us at this point compared to the past, because we got this much wider sales price dispersion, so unit of sale per se becomes less relevant.

As I know you're aware, by the way, our top competitors in smartphones, in tablets, in computers, do not provide quarterly unit sales information either. But of course we understand that this is something of interest and when we believe that providing qualitative commentary on unit sales offers additional relevant information to investors, we will do so.
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You can listen to Apple's earnings call here or click here to read the transcript.

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