iPhone Sales Lagging
The only category in which Apple saw a drop in sales was the very one where everybody was expecting it to happen. With Apple’s iPhone 12 missing the Q4 2020 launch, it also missed the normal surge in revenue that’s happened in every other Q4 in the past decade.
This was also undoubtedly hampered by the fact that pretty much everybody knows that new iPhones come out in the fall, which also always results in a price decrease for older models, so many more users would be taking a “wait and see” approach.
However, at the end of the day, Apple has almost certainly only shifted these numbers to Q1 2021, which will likely shatter previous Q1 records for iPhone sales. Previously, when iPhones were launched in September, those numbers were split across Q4 and Q1, but this time around they’re all going to land in Q1, which likely means that when we hear about the numbers in January, Q1 2021 will turn out to be Apple’s best first quarter ever for iPhone sales. Cook added that there’s a lot of excitement over 5G right now, adding that “we’re off to a great start” when it comes to the iPhone 12.