Apple announced its fiscal Q4 2023 earnings results on Thursday, with revenue of $89.50 billion between July and September. Regarding the iPad, Apple reported revenue of $6.4 billion, down from $7.2 billion in the same period last year. Apple CEO Tim Cook estimated that iPad revenue will “decelerate significantly” in the next quarter as the company hasn’t introduced any new iPads this year.
iPad revenue declining as there are no new iPads
During a call with investors, Cook stressed that despite the 10% year-on-year drop in revenue, iPad still “sets the gold standard for tablets.” The executive said that it is “difficult” to compare these periods due to the supply disruptions that affected the company in 2022, which resulted in pent-up demand that was fulfilled in the September quarter.
Even so, Cook acknowledged that Apple hasn’t introduced any new iPads this year, unlike last year. He pretty much confirmed that Apple won’t launch new iPads in November or December, saying that iPad revenue is expected to “decelerate significantly from the September quarter due to a different timing of product launches.”
We expect the year-over-year revenue performance for both iPad and Wearables, Home and Accessories to decelerate significantly from the September quarter due to a different timing of product launches. On iPad, we launched a new iPad Pro and iPad 10th generation during the December quarter a year ago.
Of course, Apple also argues that macroeconomic factors and foreign currencies can also negatively affect the company’s revenue.
Back to the iPad, it’s been a while since we’ve seen new models. As mentioned by Cook, the latest iPads to be introduced (the M2 iPad Pro and iPad 10) were announced in October 2022. The current iPad Air 5 was launched in March 2022, while the iPad mini hasn’t been updated since September 2021.
9to5Mac has heard from sources that Apple has been working on updates for its entire iPad lineup. This includes an M2-powered version of the iPad Air, an iPad mini with an A16 Bionic chip inside, and a spec-bumped version of the entry-level iPad. However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that no new iPads will be launched before March 2024.
Wearables and Macs
With the same argument, Tim Cook pointed out that revenue from Wearables, Home, and Accessories is also expected to slow down in the next quarter since Apple introduced AirPods Pro 2, the 2nd generation Apple Watch SE, and the first Apple Watch Ultra last year, which boosted sales considerably at that time.
When it comes to the Mac, the executive believes that revenue will grow in the next quarter due to demand for the new M3 Macs announced earlier this week.
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