{"id":296024,"date":"2019-01-30T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T05:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=296024"},"modified":"2019-01-30T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T05:12:10","slug":"apple-shares-rally-as-it-outlines-life-beyond-the-iphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/296024\/apple-shares-rally-as-it-outlines-life-beyond-the-iphone\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple shares rally as it outlines life beyond the iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apple Inc convinced investors that life beyond the iPhone won\u2019t be so bad, sparking a relief rally in the stock.<\/p>\n<p>The Cupertino, California-based company reported its first holiday-quarter sales decline since 2001 as revenue from the iconic handset tumbled 15%.<\/p>\n<p>But chief executive officer Tim Cook and chief financial officer Luca Maestri focused on a growing services business and rising sales of other devices.<\/p>\n<p>Mac revenue grew 9%, while iPad sales climbed 17%. The company\u2019s Wearables business, which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods, surged 50%.<\/p>\n<p>On services, the Apple executives pointed to increased usage of Apple Pay and Apple Music.<\/p>\n<p>They also made a new prediction: The number of subscriptions will top half a billion by 2020, up from 360 million now.<\/p>\n<p>Without getting into detail, Cook suggested Apple will get further into the original video content business.<\/p>\n<p>The company reported other growth stats on specific services:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Apple Pay app handled 1.8 billion transactions in the holiday quarter, twice the volume in the year-ago quarter<\/li>\n<li>Apple News had 85 million monthly active users in the period Cloud services revenue, which comes from iCloud storage upgrades, was up more than 40%<\/li>\n<li>Apple Music topped 50 million subscribers, generating record music-related revenue<\/li>\n<li>A record quarter for Search Ads, which let developers place ads in the App Store<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apple shares rose 5.5% in extended trading on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The company had lost about a third of its market value since October as investors adjusted to the reality of a saturated smartphone market and the end of growth for Apple\u2019s most-important product.<\/p>\n<p>Apple executives confirmed that customers are taking longer to upgrade their handsets, but said older iPhones will support the services business, while sales of other devices boost revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Cook noted the installed base of active Apple devices hit a record 1.4 billion in the fiscal first quarter. That\u2019s the gateway through which customers access existing and future services from the company.<\/p>\n<p>The recent slump in Apple shares may already reflect falling iPhone sales, leaving investors willing to buy into the company\u2019s vision for services.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a fiscal second-quarter forecast that missed most analysts\u2019 estimates, the company\u2019s shares rallied late Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the company will ultimately need iPhone sales to rebound or a major new hardware product. If fewer people use Apple devices, they will be less likely to pay for the company\u2019s services.<\/p>\n<p>Apple has been working on an augmented reality headset, which it plans to have ready as early as next year. It\u2019s also been adding health-tracking capabilities and iPhone features to the Watch.<\/p>\n<p>And while the services numbers impressed some investors, growth has slowed.<\/p>\n<p>The company blamed that on an accounting change, foreign exchange headwinds, approval delays for games in the Chinese App Store, and &#8220;some level&#8221; of deceleration for the AppleCare warranty business.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Apple-1-e1548824940741.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-296026\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Apple-1-e1548824940741.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"731\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/295746\/apple-has-made-spending-r20000-on-a-phone-the-new-normal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apple has made spending R20,000 on a phone the new normal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple Inc convinced investors that life beyond the iPhone won\u2019t be so bad, sparking a relief rally in the stock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":65538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[51,26],"class_list":["post-296024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-apple","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296030,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296024\/revisions\/296030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}