During the earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed the company's achievements in India, revealing that it had achieved record revenue in the country for the quarter ending in March 2024. This accomplishment occurred despite Apple's overall revenue declining by 4%, primarily due to a 10% decrease in iPhone sales compared to the previous year.
Tim Cook said, “We did grow strong by double-digit, and so we were very, very pleased with that. It was a new March quarter revenue record for us. As you know, as I’ve said before, I see it as an incredibly exciting market and it’s a major focus for us”.
The company has set a six-month revenue record in India, among other emerging markets, Apple’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri said, adding, “We were particularly pleased with our strong momentum in emerging markets, as we set first-half revenue records in several countries and regions including Latin America, the Middle East, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey”. “We are happy because these are markets where our market share is low, the populations are large and growing, and our products are really making a lot of progress in those markets. The level of excitement for the brand is very high”, Luca Maestri added.
Following the latest quarterly earnings, Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed optimism regarding the company's advancements in AI. Cook emphasized Apple's ongoing commitment to substantial investments in AI, stating, “We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI”. This was conveyed during an investors' call post-earnings. On June 10, Apple is set to hold its annual developer conference, WWDC, with a primary emphasis on unveiling AI-powered innovations.
“We believe in the transformative power and promise of AI,” Cook told investors before adding, “We believe we have advantages that will differentiate us in this new era, including Apple’s unique combination of seamless hardware, software and services integration, groundbreaking Apple’s silicon, with our industry-leading neural engines and our unwavering focus on privacy, which underpins everything we create”.
Luca Maestri, chief financial officer, Apple also weighed in with his views and said Apple has been investing heavily in innovation across the board. “We are obviously very excited about the opportunity with Gen AI. We obviously are pushing very hard on innovation on every front and we’ve been doing that for many, many years”, he said.