Apple’s Growth Scorecard

Apple revenues grew at the rate of about 6% in Q4, while earnings grew at 5%. These were improvements over Q3 and Q2 but the rate of top line growth is has not been this low since 2009. The bottom line is also slower than it’s been for the entire “epoch” or era of the iPhone.

The components of sales growth are shown in the following table:

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The company delivered performance inline with its own guidance so there should not have been surprises in the top and bottom lines. However, the disappointment might be in the low growth for iPhone (at 6%) and iPad (at 7%). The Mac and iTunes grew at moderate rates (16% and 19% respectively) while the iPod continued its decline with -55% growth and Accessories remained fairly flat.

As the graph below shows, the iPhone and iPad are the bulk of the business so their performance is a large part of what is observed. Continue reading “Apple’s Growth Scorecard”