Apple results: The iPad is eating into Windows sales, says Tim Cook

Yesterday Apple revealed its Q1 results for the year 2013. The company posted a revenue of $54.5 billion and a net profit of $13.1 billion, or $13.81 per diluted share fort the 2013 first quarter which ended on 29 December 2012. As far as iPhones were concerned, Apple sold 47.8 million iPhones, a 10.8 million leap from the 37 million sold in Q1 2012. iPad sales continued to be strong with Apple selling 22.9 million iPads, again a significant increase compared to 15.4 million iPads for the same-quarter last year. In the investor call, Apple CEO Tim Cook, talked about different screen sizes for the iPhone and the growth of the iPad. There have been concerns that Apple’s iPhone is unable to compete with other smartphones which have bigger screens. Rival Samsung’s flagship device, the Galaxy S III has a 4.8-inch screen while the iPhone 5 has a 4-inch screen. Cook however refused to say if Apple would change the screen size. “We put a lot of thinking into screen size and believe we picked the right one,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_600386” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Tim Cook in this file photo of the iPad mini launch. AFP[/caption] Cook also commented on demand and supply production chains and said, “There have been lots of rumours about order cuts and so forth. I would suggest it’s good to question the accuracy of any kind of rumour. Even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to accurately interpret what the data point meant for our overall business because the supply chain is very complex.”  He did admit to supply shortages for iPad mini and iMac and says that it still continues for the quarter. As far as the iPad is concerned Cook said, “We had strong sales for iPad and iPad mini in the last quarter. It is clear [the iPad] is already cannibalising [Windows] some. There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity there. I’ve said for two or three years now that the tablet market will be larger than the PC market at some point. You can see by the growth in tablets and pressure on PCs that those lines are beginning to converge.” On China, the Apple CEO said, “Greater China is our focus. We saw exceptional growth in iPhones in triple digits. We shipped iPads very late in the quarter but despite that we saw good growth in the numbers.” Apple now has 11 stores in China and over a hundred premium re-sellers. Cook indicated that China remains a big priority for Apple and they are going to increase the number of stores in the country.