Skip to main content

Tim Cook boasts Apple sold ’10 devices per second’ last quarter

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Apple CEO Tim Cook had some interesting news to share today during his quarterly earnings conference call. The 52-year-old executive claims that Apple has pushed out half a billion iOS devices to date and “sold 10 devices per second” last quarter.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based firm broke Wall Street records with its quarterly earnings during 2012’s final fiscal period. Today, Apple reported quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion and record quarterly profit of $13.1 billion. This may not be enough to impress some analysts, considering the company’s stock lingered at $488.11 during after-hour trading. This is a decrease from its usual $514.17 value, as VentureBeat reports.

“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter,” Cook also said on Wednesday. “We’re very confident in our product pipelines as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”

According to the numbers, Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones, 22.9 million iPads, and 12.7 million iPods last quarter, dominating the holiday sales season. Before Cook reported Apple’s official numbers for last quarter, some companies came forward to provide a sneak peek at Apple sales for the tail end of 2012. Verizon alone admitted that it activated 6.2 million iPhones in Q4 2012, and a study from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech indicates that iPhones accounted for 51.2 percent of mobile phone transactions in the United States during that same quarter.

While experts may have predicted that Apple would have seen a more successful fourth quarter, shelling out 10 devices per second is no easy feat. Apple is expected to continue growing its iOS platform over the next year, as KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo acknowledged in his projected Apple roadmap for 2013. The computer design firm is expected to introduce a successor to the iPhone 5 as well as a redesigned version of its flagship smartphone in Q3 2013, Kuo says. Of course, it’s impossible to predict Apple’s next move, but we’ll be waiting to see which rumors turn out to be true over the next 12 months.

Editors' Recommendations

Lisa Eadicicco
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Lisa Eadicicco is a technology and video game reporter based in New York City. She graduated from Purchase College in 2012…
Everything Apple didn’t announce at its iPhone 15 event
Apple's September 2023 event Tim Cook

Yesterday's iPhone 15 event revolved solely around the iPhone 15/iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, and Apple Watch Series 9 (along with Apple Watch Ultra 2). As a result, no new iPads, Macs, or audio products were announced. This news isn't surprising, and the omissions suggest another Apple event may occur before the year's end, although this has yet to be confirmed and may not happen for a few weeks.

There are a lot of would-be Apple products that could make appearances in the coming weeks or months — but weren't shown at today's event.
New iPads

Read more
How to get new emojis on your iPhone or Android device
Emoji reactions on Google Messages running on OnePlus 11.

Text messages and messaging apps are fantastic, but plain old text can sometimes fail to get an emotion across properly — and that's where emojis come in. While picking specific emojis is something of a generational minefield, with younger folks considering older peoples' choices cringey to the extreme, there's no doubt that slotting a little emoji onto the end of a message can help to clarify your meaning. Since they were launched in the late 1990s, these ideograms, smiley faces, and emoticons have helped us to express ourselves for decades.

Read more
What iPhone do I have? How to find out your iPhone model number
Close-up of the iPhone SE 2022 and iPhone 14 Plus camera modules.

Since its landmark introduction in 2007, Apple has released a total of 38 different iPhone models, and with at least four new ones introduced every fall, the company is showing no signs of slowing down.

In all that time, Apple has made relatively few significant design changes. The company tends to stick with established designs for three or four years before changing things up, which can sometimes make it difficult to tell which iPhone model you have —  especially if you're getting a secondhand iPhone (with no box to offer a hint) rather than a new one.

Read more