Investors don’t seem that impressed by Apple’s $111 billion quarter

NelsonG · January 27, 2021

On Wednesday, Apple announces that it had banked $111.4 billion of revenue in a single quarter, beating investor expectations and blowing past its previous all-time revenue record. Investors yawned with the stock down slightly in after-hours trading following the report’s release.

It’s a big number but it also bested analyst’s forecasts for Apple’s first quarter. Apple beat investor expectations on both earnings per share and revenues, delivering much more than the expected $103.3 billion in revenues and $1.68 EPS versus the $1.41 the Street had expected.

As meme stocks like GameStop and AMC see 100%+ stock gains, it’s a sober reminder that for the rest of the broader public market it’s business as usual and investors have big expectations for massive tech stocks that have seen their market caps and stock prices reach new heights in recent months. Despite the lack of a shock adjustment from the earnings report release this afternoon, Apple’s share price has risen more than 23% since it released its last earnings report in late October.

Apple’s revenue gains from Q1 represented 20 percent year-over-year revenue growth, but a big chunk of that growth came from a single region: China. Quarterly revenues in the region were up nearly 57% eclipsing $21.3 billion compared to $13.6 billion in the same quarter last year.

In terms of revenues via product vertical, iPhone of course reigned supreme with $65.6 billion in sales compared to $56 billion in sales during the same quarter last year. Due to a later-than-usual release timeline for Apple’s latest iPhones, this quarter encapsulates a more substantial swath of the early sales for the device.

It wasn’t just a big quarter for iPhone, iPad sales growth exceeded that of Mac, nearly pushing the category above the other with $8.7 billion in Mac sales and $8.4 billion in iPad sales. Wearables, Home and Accessories grew to $13 billion and Services reached new heights at $15.8 billion.

We’ll be updating with details from the earnings call.