Apple’s Third Quarter Results Suggest Healthy Sales Despite Worries About iPhone 8

Amidst talks of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus not living up to expectations sales wise, it appears that Apple is not having a bad third quarter after all. As a matter of fact, the tech giant has just released its Q3 2017 earnings report and it is actually having quite a good three month run, with revenues generally beating analysts’ projections.

The second biggest smartphone vendor in the planet managed to sell 46.7 million units of its iPhone devices during the third quarter of this year, registering a 2.6 percent improvement over that of the same period one year ago. According to analyst projections, the company was expected to sell 46.5 million units in Q3 2017, but Apple has surpassed that projected number. In after hours trading, Apple saw its shares increase 3.5 percent to $171.59. 

It should be noted, however, that Apple’s third quarter numbers may not properly paint a picture of how well this year’s new iPhone models are doing in terms of sales. This is because 2017 is sort of an unusual year for the tech giant, mainly because it decided to deviate from its usual two iPhones per year strategy, and instead release a trio of new iPhone offerings (namely the iPhone X, the iPhone 8, and the iPhone 8 Plus). The iPhone 8 models had already launched in September 22nd of this year, but we won’t know their sales numbers after the first week of release until Apple releases its Q4 2017 results, which will also include sales figures for the highly awaited iPhone X.

It is a sure bet that Apple will be having a really good fourth quarter this year because of the iPhone X. As reported by Slice Intelligence, consumers purchased 25 percent more units of the iPhone X in the first four days of preorders compared to 2014’s iPhone 6, the previous best ever for an iPhone device. 

But then this is where things get tricky -- there is no doubt that there is high demand for the iPhone X, but could the device’s limited availability have an impact on its sales numbers? Less than an hour after Apple started accepting preorders for the iPhone X, ship times for the device have already lengthened to five or six weeks. 

Still, even the analysts are expecting big things in the coming holiday season, which is typically Apple’s best performing stretch in any given year. According to projections, the company is set to sell 81 million iPhone devices during the fourth quarter of the year, which should comfortably surpass the previous best of 78.3 million units recorded last year.