Apple Profits Double As Users Upgrade To 5G iPhones

Apple has experienced strong quarterly sales, thanks to people upgrading to 5G iPhones, coupled with heavy consumer spending on its products throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.

Apple during the second quarter managed to double its profits, while revenues also rose a very impressive 54 percent.

The fact that the iPhone maker continues to bring in such huge sums, has allowed it to continue its heavy spending of late. This includes building a $1 billion campus in North Carolina, on top of its new campus being built in Austin (Texas), but also its commitment to spend $430 billion in the US over the next five years, which is expected to create 20,000 new jobs across the country

Financial boom

It is fair to say after a reviewing Apple’s quarterly results, the firm is in very rude health indeed.

For the second quarter ending 27 March, Apple posted a net profit of $23.6bn, up from $11.2bn in the same year-ago quarter.

Revenues meanwhile rose to $89.6bn from $58.3bn.

Digging down into those figures, we can see Apple benefited from the arrival of its 5G equiped iPhone 12 product range, with iPhone sales of just under $48 billion, up by 66 percent from a year ago.

Sales of the Appl Mac and iPad hardware also surged for yet another quarter, up 70 and 78 percent respectively. This was down in part to continued remote working from home because of lockdowns forced by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

“This quarter reflects both the enduring ways our products have helped our users meet this moment in their own lives, as well as the optimism consumers seem to feel about better days ahead for all of us,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

“Apple is in a period of sweeping innovation across our product lineup, and we’re keeping focus on how we can help our teams and the communities where we work emerge from this pandemic into a better world,” said Cook.

“That certainly begins with products like the all-new iMac and iPad Pro, but it extends to efforts like the 8 gigawatts of new clean energy we’ll help bring onto the grid and our $430 billion investment in the United States over the next 5 years.”

Tracking clampdown

And it should be remembered that these strong financials are not a fluke for Apple, and come after a historic first quarter that ending in December, which saw the company surpass $100 billion in revenue for the first time in its history.

Apple this week also introduced its iOS 14.5 update, in what campaigners hope will be a watershed moment for online privacy.

The latest iOS update will require apps to ask for permission to track your activity online. If an app is launched on a device running iOS 14.5, an “App Tracking Transparency” (ATT) label should display and ask the user whether they agree to let the app track them across other companies’ apps and websites.