Apple’s June quarter earnings hit another record in India as the iPhone maker posted strong double-digit growth in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.
The performance of stores opened in India this spring exceeded the company’s initial expectations, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a post-earnings analyst call.
“We hit a revenue record for the June quarter in India, and we had strong double-digit growth. We also opened our first 2 retail stores in the quarter. And it’s very early going right now, but how they beat our expectations is doing it again,” he said, without revealing the numbers.
Apple continues to work to build this channel and invest more in its direct-to-consumer offerings, Cook said. “I think if you look at it, it’s the second-largest smartphone market in the world. So we should do really well there. And where I’m really pleased with our growth, we still have a very, very modest and low share of the smartphone market. And so I think it’s a huge opportunity for us. And we’re doing everything we can to make that happen,” Cook said.
The comments come as the Cupertino, California-based company’s revenue fell for the third consecutive quarter. The iPhone maker’s revenue fell 1% year over year to $81.8 billion in the April-June quarter.
The world’s most valuable company will continue to open more stores. “We continue to open more stores. You know, we only opened 2 in India last quarter. There are still a lot of countries that don’t have an Apple Store that we want to go to. And so we continue to look at how we go to market and the experience that we can offer customers there. Look at it as a core part,” Cook said.
“We see strong results in emerging markets, driven by strong iPhone sales with record June quarter total revenue in India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. We also see strong results in June in several other countries, including France, the Netherlands and Austria. set a record for the quarter. And we set an all-time revenue record in services driven by paid subscriptions of over $1 billion,” he added.