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Apple posted a record holiday quarter, with Revenue rising to around $111 billion, a 21% increase compared to last year driven by strong growth across all its product categories. EPS also rose to $1.70 up from $ 1.26 a year ago. The iPhone business saw sales expand by 17% to $65.6 billion, driven by the iPhone 12 handsets. The company also posted its highest-ever Revenue from the greater China region in the December quarter.
Apple unveiled its new iPhone 12 models in mid-October 2020 - including the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. The new devices represent a nice upgrade from last year’s models, with 5G wireless technology, new processors, improved cameras, a slightly refreshed design, and new screen size options. While Apple has indicated the early demand for the devices has been strong, it's likely that wireless carriers – who’ve spent considerable amounts on 5G network upgrades – will be aggressive with promotions on the new devices as they look to sign up new customers and boost revenues.
Apple has started shifting its Macs from Intel chips to its custom ARM-based processors. In November, the company launched updated versions of its Macbook Air, Macbook Pro 13, and Mac Mini that run on its custom M1 processors. A complete transition is planned by 2022. By designing its own processors, Apple will control the Mac experience from end-to-end, allowing it to optimize performance, design, and battery life. There is likely to be an attractive financial incentive as well, considering that processors are very high-margin components.
Below are key drivers of Apple's value that present opportunities for upside or downside to the current Trefis price estimate for Apple:
For additional details, select a driver above or select a division from the interactive Trefis split for Apple at the top of the page.
Apple makes money primarily by selling mobile phones, computers, and tablets to consumers worldwide. Apple's well-known consumer products include the iPhone, Mac, iPad and Apple Watch. In addition to selling hardware, Apple makes money from services that include the App Store, Apple Music and iCloud. Our valuation model is based on Apple's fiscal year, which ends on September 30.
We believe the iPhone segment is more valuable than the Mac and iPad segments due to:
The smartphone market is significantly larger than the tablet market and margins in the smartphone business are also likely to be higher. Globally, about 1.4 billion smartphones were shipped globally in 2019.
In 2007, when Apple entered the then-nascent smartphone market with the iPhone, Nokia and RIM were the only players in this segment. iPhone's success led to the entry of other players in the market, which has seen a huge spurt in demand in recent years. Today, consumers have a huge array of smartphones to choose from, including premium Android smartphones from Samsung and Google and low-cost manufacturers such as Lenovo and Xiaomi. While the smartphone market could expand slightly, much of the sales are coming from low and mid-priced handsets in emerging markets, while the high-end of the market - which Apple caters to - is becoming increasingly saturated. Apple posted a year-over-year decline in iPhone sales during FY'16, FY'19, and FY'20. However, the company is expected to see double-digit growth in iPhone sales in FY'21, driven by the new iPhone 12.
Apple's Services business has grown at a rate of over 21% between FY'16 and FY'20, eclipsing the iPad and Mac to become the company’s second-largest business segment with revenues of about $54 billion in FY'20. While the App store remains the primary driver of growth, services such as Apple Music are also gaining traction. Apple's base of paid subscriptions on its platform has also been rising steadily, with about 585 million active subscriptions at the end of September 2020.
Global tablet shipments have been sluggish on account of longer upgrade cycles for tablets and cannibalization from large-screen smartphones. Apple has been impacted, with iPad shipments declining by about 4% in FY'17 and remaining almost flat in FY'18. However, things started to turnaround in FY'19, driven by Apple's two-pronged strategy of focusing on both value-priced tablets for casual users while catering to professionals with its higher-powered iPad Pro devices, which are priced as high as $1,800.
While the global PC market has been shrinking, Apple has largely been able to buck the trend given its superior product differentiation, proprietary Mac OS software and applications, sleek design, and premium build quality. Apple also benefits from the fact that it plays in the high end of the PC market – typically focusing on the lucrative $1,000+ price points – rather than the commoditized low and mid-range where a bulk of the volumes come from. Over FY'20, Mac Revenues reached an all-time high of almost $29 billion, as demand for computers soared with people working and learning remotely due to Covid-19.