Luca Maestri - Apple, Inc.
Analyst · the information you'll hear during our discussion today will consist of forward-looking statements, including without limitation those regarding revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, other income and expense, taxes, and future business outlook. Actual results or trends could differ materially from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in Apple's Form 10-K for 2016 and the Form 8-K filed with the SEC today along with the associated press release. Apple assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates. I'd now like to turn the call over to Tim for introductory remarks
Thank you, Tim. Good afternoon everyone. Revenue for the December quarter was $78.4 billion, the highest quarterly revenue in the history of Apple and above our guidance range. As Tim mentioned, the strength of our results was very broad-based, as we set new revenue records for iPhone, for Services, for Mac, and for Apple Watch. We also established new all-time revenue records in most developed and emerging markets, with strong growth rates in many countries, including the U.S., Japan, Canada, France, Australia, Brazil, India, Turkey, and Russia. We accomplished all this despite a very challenging foreign exchange environment due to the continued strength of the U.S. dollar. As we had expected, our year-over-year performance in Greater China improved significantly relative to the September quarter. Total Greater China segment revenue was down 12%, but revenue from Mainland China was even with the all-time record results from a year ago and grew in constant currency terms. In all other geographic segments, we generated all-time quarterly record results. We had the benefit of a 14th week during the quarter this year, but this was offset by four factors. First, this year we grew China inventory significantly less than a year ago. Second, iPhone 7 launched earlier in the September quarter compared to the iPhone 6s launch the previous year, creating a more difficult comparison for the December quarter this year. Third, the stronger U.S. dollar affected total revenue growth this year by 100 basis points. And fourth, our year-ago revenue included the benefit of a one-off $548 million patent infringement payment. Also, strong customer interest left us in supply/demand imbalance for several of our products throughout the quarter this year. Gross margin was 38.5%, at the high end of our guidance range. Operating margin was 29.8% of revenue, and net income was $17.9 billion. Diluted earnings per share were $3.36, a new all-time record, and cash flow from operations was $27.1 billion. We had a terrific quarter for iPhone as we sold 78.3 million units, a new all-time record and an increase of 5% over last year. Customer demand was even higher than our reported results, as iPhone unit sell-through was up 8%. We saw double-digit iPhone growth in the U.S., in Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia, and even stronger growth in many emerging markets, including Brazil, Turkey, Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Vietnam. iPhone ASP increased to $695 in the December quarter from $619 in the September quarter, driven by the very strong product mix and the amazing success of iPhone 7 Plus. Despite stronger demand than last year, we added only 1.2 million units of iPhone channel inventory across the quarter, significantly less than the increase of 3.3 million units a year ago. And we exited the quarter near the low end of our 5 to 7-week target channel inventory range. Customer interest and satisfaction with iPhone are exceptional, not only with consumers, but also with business users. In the U.S., for instance, the latest data from 451 Research on consumers indicates a 97% customer satisfaction rating among all iPhone owners and a 99% satisfaction rating for owners of iPhone 7 Plus. Among corporate smartphone buyers, the iPhone customer satisfaction rating was 94%. And of those planning to purchase smartphones in the March quarter, 78% plan to purchase an iPhone. Turning to Services, we generated an all-time record $7.2 billion in revenue, an increase of 18% year over year. Our run rate growth was actually higher when taking into account two discrete items. On one hand, the 14th week added to Services revenue this December quarter. On the other hand, that benefit was more than offset by the comparison to the one-off $548 million patent infringement payment included in Services revenue a year ago. The App Store continued its impressive run, breaking all previous revenue records. Year-over-year App Store revenue growth was 43% through the first 13 weeks of the quarter. It's great to see that both average revenue per paying account and the number of paying accounts grew strongly during the quarter. And according to App Annie's latest report, App Store revenue continues to outpace the industry overall, with more than double the revenue of Google Play in calendar 2016. Next I would like to talk about the Mac. We sold 5.4 million Macs and generated our highest-ever quarterly Mac revenue. We were very happy to report double-digit unit growth in several countries, including Japan, Mainland China, India, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as well as in the U.S. education market. We ended the quarter at the low end of our 4 to 5-week target range for Mac channel inventory. Turning to iPad, we sold 13.1 million units, which was ahead of our expectations. And we posted double-digit growth in both Mainland China and India, as we've expanded distribution channels in those countries and we continue to attract a very high percentage of first-time tablet buyers. We also reduced channel inventory by about 700,000 units as opposed to an increase of 900,000 units last year, and we exited the quarter near the low end of our five to seven-week target range. iPad is incredibly successful in the segments of the tablet market where we compete, both in terms of market share and customer metrics. Recent data from NPD indicates that iPad had 85% share of the U.S. market for tablets priced above $200. And in November, 451 Research measured a 94% consumer satisfaction rate for iPad Mini, a 97% rate for iPad Air, and 96% for iPad Pro. Among U.S. consumers planning to purchase a tablet within the next six months, purchase intention for iPad is more than four times higher than any other brand measured, with iPad Pro once again the top choice for planned purchases. Corporate buyers reported a 96% satisfaction rate and a purchase intent of 66% for the March quarter. In fact, businesses of all sizes are choosing iPad and iPhone to have them reimagine their everyday activities. We're seeing strong momentum in sectors such as retail, where iOS solutions are being deployed for everything from product development to logistics to mobile point-of-sale. Companies like Toys "R" Us, Coach, and Kate Spade are using iOS and our mobility partner solutions to dramatically transform their customer and employee experiences. Our retail stores experienced strong double-digit growth in visitors and revenue in the December quarter. And we continued to expand our global presence, with plans to open our first store in Singapore and our second store in Dubai soon. We are continually updating our stores and adding new and exciting outreach programs to educate kids on our products, entertain the community with fresh live music, teach future Swift developers to code, and empower entrepreneurs to start, grow, and evolve their businesses. Let me now turn to our cash position. We ended the quarter with $246.1 billion in cash plus marketable securities, a sequential increase of $8.5 billion. $230.2 billion of this cash or 94% of the total was outside the United States. We also had $77.1 billion in term debt and $10.5 billion in commercial paper outstanding at quarter end. We returned almost $15 billion to investors during a very busy December quarter for our capital return activities. We paid $3.1 billion in dividends and equivalents. We spent $5 billion on repurchases of 44.3 million Apple shares through open market transactions. And we launched a new $6 billion ASR, resulting in an initial delivery and retirement of 44.8 million shares. We also completed our eighth accelerated share repurchase program, retiring an additional 4.4 million shares. This led to a net diluted share count reduction of 65.3 million shares during the quarter. We've now completed $201 billion of our current $250 billion capital return program, including $144 billion in share repurchases. And we plan to provide investors with our annual update on the capital return program in the spring. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 26%, as expected. And as we move ahead into the March quarter, I'd like to review our outlook, which includes the types of forward-looking information that Nancy referred to at the beginning of the call. We expect revenue to be between $51.5 billion and $53.5 billion. This guidance range includes a $1.2 billion year-over-year headwind from foreign exchange. We expect gross margin to be between 38% and 39%. This guidance range includes an 80 basis points sequential headwind from foreign exchange. We expect OpEx to be between $6.5 billion and $6.6 billion. We expect OI&E to be about $400 million, and we expect the tax rate to be about 26%. Also today, our Board of Directors has declared a cash dividend up $0.57 per share of common stock, payable on February 16, 2017 to shareholders of record as of February 13, 2017. With that, I'd like to open the call to questions.