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Earnings Call: Q1 2022

Jan 27, 2022

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Apple Q1 FY 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Tejas Gala, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Speaking first today is Apple CEO Tim Cook, and he'll be followed by CFO Luca Maestri. After that, we'll open the call to questions from analysts. Please note that some of 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, capital allocation, and future business outlook, including the potential impact of COVID-19 on the company's business and results of operations. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results or trends to differ materially from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in Apple's most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K 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.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thank you, Tejas, and good afternoon. Today, we are proud to announce Apple's biggest quarter ever. Through the busy holiday season, we set an all-time revenue record of nearly $124 billion, up 11% from last year and better than we had expected at the beginning of the quarter. We are pleased to see that our active install base of devices is now at a new record with more than 1.8 billion devices. We set all-time records for both developed and emerging markets and saw revenue growth across all of our product categories except for iPad, which we said would be supply constrained. As expected, in the aggregate, we experienced supply constraints that were higher than the September quarter.

Before I discuss our results in greater detail, I want to first acknowledge the toll that COVID continues to have on communities around the world. In many places, case counts are higher and health systems more strained than at any point throughout the pandemic. On behalf of all of us at Apple, I want to extend our deep gratitude to the scientists, doctors, nurses, and so many others on the front lines of combating COVID-19. This is our eighth quarter reporting results in the shadow of the pandemic, and while I can't say it gets any easier, I can say I'm incredibly proud of the way our teams have come together and continue to innovate on behalf of our customers. A few weeks ago, we marked the fifteenth anniversary of the day Steve revealed iPhone to the world.

We knew that we had the beginnings of something fundamentally transformative, though none of us could have predicted the incredible and meaningful impact it would have on all of our lives. The creative spirit that made the first iPhone possible has thrived at Apple every day since. We never stop creating. We never stop innovating. You can see that spirit reflected throughout our products from the incredible performance and capability of our M1 chips, to our powerful yet easy-to-use operating systems, to our unrivaled iPhone camera systems, to the beauty and magic of AirPods. That's why each of our major products leads the industry in customer satisfaction for their respective category. People expect Apple to solve hard problems with easy-to-use products. iPhone has never been more popular.

During the December quarter, we set an all-time revenue record for iPhone thanks to the strength of our incredible iPhone 13 lineup. This is the best iPhone lineup we've ever had, and the reaction from the press and our users have been off the charts. This past quarter, we also set another all-time revenue record for Mac with customers eager to get their hands on an M1-powered MacBook Air, iMac, or MacBook Pro. We've been thrilled with the response from pro users to the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips and to see how Apple silicon is blowing them away with its power, performance, and efficiency. Despite the constraints I mentioned earlier, our iPad lineup continues to be indispensable to tens of millions of people, from teachers and students to artists and creators.

Customers are eager to get their hands on our ninth generation iPad, which features a beautiful display and double the storage capacity, as well as the new iPad mini with its ultra-portable design. Wearables, Home and Accessories, meanwhile, set an all-time revenue record. Customers are loving the Apple Watch Series 7 with its cutting-edge health and fitness tracking features. Nearly every day, I get notes from customers who share how a heart alert led to a life-saving appointment with a cardiologist. More recently, I've been hearing from people who tell me that their Apple Watch saved their lives by calling 911 when they couldn't. As I've said, we're still in the early innings with our health work, but every day I am encouraged by our positive impact. We are also making great advancements in audio and are seeing strong demand from customers as a result.

The HomePod mini continues to earn praise for combining the intelligence of Siri with an immersive room-filling audio experience. Our customers have responded with a lot of excitement to the magic of spatial audio on AirPods, which packs the acoustics of a concert hall. As always, the deep integration of hardware, software, and services is a hallmark of everything Apple makes. It's a principle you can see at work in the introduction of SharePlay, a feature that offers a whole new way to create shared experiences by letting users watch and listen to their favorite content together on FaceTime. We continue to invest in innovation across our services business, which set another all-time revenue record last quarter and performed even better than we had anticipated.

The App Store continues to be an economic miracle for developers around the world and a safe and trusted place for consumers to discover their favorite apps. Since its launch, we have paid developers selling digital goods and services more than $260 billion, with 2021 setting a new record for their earnings. I'm also happy to report that in its first two years, Apple TV+ shows and movies have earned 200 award wins and more than 890 nominations. Among the powerful lineup are feature films like The Tragedy of Macbeth, CODA, and Swan Song, along with many gripping new series coming up, including Severance and The Afterparty. Each one is a tremendous credit to all the storytellers in front of the cameras and behind them who've touched audiences all over the world.

Fitness+, meanwhile, continues to inspire customers to reach their health and fitness goals. We recently introduced Time to Run, an extension of our popular series Time to Walk, as well as new collections of workouts and meditations to help users make more intentional training choices. Despite the pandemic, our retail businesses saw its highest revenue in Apple's history, and we also earned our highest-ever customer satisfaction scores. That is a testament to the incredible adaptability our teams have shown as we've reimagined the retail experience. I also want to take a moment to thank our retail employees and AppleCare teams for the deep care you've given to our customers as they look to get the most out of our products, learn new skills, or track down the perfect gift.

We have always led with our values and with compassion and care, and never has that been more needed than during the pandemic. Last quarter, we celebrated 10 years of our employee giving program, which we started to help our employees identify and support the causes they care most deeply about. We pledged to match their contributions to organizations doing important work at every level, from their local food pantry to global humanitarian nonprofits. In the last decade, this program has contributed nearly $725 million to charitable organizations. We also celebrated 15 years of Apple's partnership with the Global Fund on Product RED, supporting their life-saving work to expand healthcare services in sub-Saharan Africa for people living with HIV/AIDS.

With the support of our customers, we've now raised nearly $270 million to fund prevention, testing, and counseling services for people impacted by HIV/AIDS. In keeping with our abiding belief in and commitment to education, we also launched a new partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. This initiative will help young people across the U.S. learn to code on iPad using our Everyone Can Code curriculum. We are continuing to drive innovations to help combat climate change. We are already carbon neutral across our own operations, and we are working intensely to meet our 2030 goal of carbon neutrality across our supply chain and the life cycle of our products. To celebrate Black History Month, we will be releasing a special edition Apple Watch Black Unity Braided Solo Loop and a matching Unity Lights watch face.

Through our Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, we are continuing to support organizations blazing trails to a more equitable world in our economies, our classrooms, and our criminal justice system. We recognize, as ever, that it takes all of us to confront our most profound challenges, and at Apple, we are determined to do our part. That includes our own work in inclusion and diversity, which we are advancing every day. Let me close by saying that despite the uncertainty of the world, there is one thing of which I am certain: Apple will continue to innovate every day and in every way to deliver on the promise of technology at its best. I will now turn it over to Luca to go over our quarterly results in more detail.

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Thank you, Tim, and good afternoon, everyone. We're very pleased to report record financial results for the December quarter. We set an all-time revenue record of $123.9 billion, an 11% increase from a year ago. We reached new all-time records in the Americas, Europe, Greater China, and the rest of Asia-Pacific. It was also an all-time record quarter for both products and services. On the product side, revenue was $104.4 billion, up 9% over a year ago, despite significant supply constraints. We grew in each of our product categories, except iPad, where supply constraints were particularly pronounced, and set all-time records for iPhone, Mac, and wearables, home and accessories.

The strong level of sales performance, the unmatched loyalty of our customers, and the strength of our ecosystem have driven our current installed base of active devices to a new all-time record of 1.8 billion devices. The growth in the installed base was broad-based, as we set all-time records in each major product category and in each geographic segment. Our services set an all-time revenue record of $19.5 billion, up 24% over a year ago, with December quarter records in every geographic segment. Company gross margin was 43.8%, up 160 basis points from last quarter due to volume leverage and favorable mix, partially offset by higher cost structures. Products gross margin was 38.4%, up 410 basis points sequentially, driven by leverage and mix.

Services gross margin was 72.4%, up 190 basis points sequentially, mainly due to a different mix. Net income of $34.6 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.10 both grew more than 20% year-over-year and were all-time records. Operating cash flow of $47 billion was also an all-time record. Let me get into more detail for each of our revenue categories. iPhone revenue grew 9% year-over-year to an all-time record of $71.6 billion, despite supply constraints, thanks to a remarkable customer response to our new iPhone 13 family. We set all-time records in both developed and emerging markets, reached an all-time high in the iPhone active installed base, and the latest survey of U.S. consumers from 451 Research indicates iPhone customer satisfaction of 98%.

For Mac, revenue of $10.9 billion was an all-time record, with growth of 25% year-over-year, driven by strong demand for our newly redesigned MacBook Pro powered by M1, despite supply constraints. We are one year into our transition to Apple silicon, and already the vast majority of our Mac sales are from M1-powered devices, which helped drive a record number of upgraders during the December quarter. Our momentum in this category is very impressive, as the last six quarters have been the best six quarters ever for Mac. iPad generated $7.2 billion in revenue, down 14% year-over-year due to very significant supply constraints, but customer demand was very strong across all models.

Despite the supply shortages, our installed base of iPads reached a new all-time high during the quarter, thanks to a high number of customers that are new to iPad. In fact, around half of the customers purchasing an iPad during the quarter were new to the product. Wearables, home and accessories set a new all-time record of $14.7 billion, up 13% year-over-year, and we set all-time revenue records in each geographic segment. We also continue to improve and expand our product offerings in this category to create unique experiences showcasing our deep integration of hardware, software, and services. In addition to an outstanding level of sales performance globally, Apple Watch continues to extend its reach, with over two-thirds of customers purchasing an Apple Watch during the quarter being new to the product.

Turning to services, as I mentioned, we reached an all-time revenue record of $19.5 billion, up 24%, with all-time records for cloud services, for music, video, advertising, and payment services, and a December quarter record for the App Store. These impressive results reflect the positive momentum we are seeing on many fronts. First, as I mentioned before, our installed base has continued to grow and has reached an all-time high across each geographic segment and major product category. Next, we continue to see increased customer engagement with our services. The number of paid accounts on our digital content stores grew double digits and reached a new all-time high during the December quarter in every geographic segment. Also, paid subscriptions continue to show very strong growth.

We now have more than 785 million paid subscriptions across the services on our platform, which is up from 165 million during the last 12 months alone. Finally, we're adding new services that we think our customers will love, and we continue to improve the breadth and quality of our current service offerings. Just in this last quarter, we have added incredible new content on Apple TV+, on Fitness+, and Apple Arcade, and a brand-new way to listen to music with Apple Music Voice. We also announced in November the beta program for Apple Business Essentials, a new service offering that brings together device management, 24/7 support, and iCloud storage to help small businesses manage the end-to-end life cycle of their employees' Apple devices.

We are very excited that many thousands of small business customers are already actively participating in the beta program. This announcement is just one of many ways we're expanding our support for enterprise and business customers. With the latest MacBook Pros that we've introduced last October, the new M1-powered Mac lineup has quickly become the preferred choice of Macs among enterprise customers. Shopify, for example, is upgrading its entire global workforce to M1-powered MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. By standardizing on M1 Macs, Shopify continues its commitment to providing the best tools to help its employees work productively and securely from anywhere. Deloitte Consulting is expanding the deployment of the Mac Employee Choice Program, including offering the new M1 MacBook Pro to empower their professionals to choose devices that work best for them in delivering consulting services. Let me now turn to our cash position.

Due to our strong operating performance and holiday quarter seasonality, we ended the quarter with $203 billion in cash + marketable securities. We decreased commercial paper by $1 billion, leaving us with total debt of $123 billion. As a result, net cash was $80 billion at the end of the quarter. Our business continues to generate very strong cash flow, and we were able to return nearly $27 billion to shareholders during the December quarter. This included $3.7 billion in dividends and equivalents and $14.4 billion through open market repurchases of 93 million Apple shares.

This included $3.7 billion in dividends and equivalents and $14.4 billion through open market repurchases of 93 million Apple shares. We also began $6 billion accelerated share repurchase program in November, resulting in the initial delivery and retirement of 30 million shares. As we move ahead into the March quarter, I'd like to review our outlook, which includes the types of forward-looking information that Tejas referred to at the beginning of the call. Given the continued uncertainty around the world in the near term, we're not providing revenue guidance, but we are sharing some directional insights based on the assumption that the COVID-related impacts to our business do not worsen from what we are projecting today for the current quarter.

We expect to achieve solid year-over-year revenue growth and set a March quarter revenue record despite significant supply constraints, which we estimate to be less than what we experienced during the December quarter. We expect our revenue growth rate to decelerate from the December quarter, primarily due to two factors. First, during the March quarter a year ago, we grew revenue by 54%. Remember that last year we launched our new iPhones during the December quarter, while this year we launched them during the September quarter. Due to the later launch a year ago, some of the associated channel inventory fill occurred during the March quarter last year. As a result of the different launch timing, we will face a more challenging year-over-year compare. Second, we expect foreign exchange to be a 3-point headwind when compared to the December quarter growth rate.

We currently expect FX to have a negative impact on growth of two points in the March quarter, while it represented a 1-point benefit during the December quarter. Specifically related to services, we expect to grow strong double digits but decelerate from the December quarter performance. This is due to a more challenging compare because a higher level of lockdowns around the world last year led to increased usage of digital content and services. We expect gross margin to be between 42.5% and 43.5%. We expect OpEx to be between $12.5 billion and $12.7 billion. We expect OIE to be around negative $150 million, excluding any potential impact from the mark to market of minority investments, and our tax rate to be around 16%.

Finally, today our board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.22 per share of common stock payable on February 10, 2022 to shareholders of record as of February 7, 2022. With that, let's open the call to questions.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thank you, Luca. We ask that you limit yourself to two questions. Operator, may we have the first question, please?

Operator

Absolutely. We'll take our first question from Katy Huberty with Morgan Stanley. Caller, please check your mute function. We're unable to hear you. Hearing no response, we'll take our next question from Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America.

Wamsi Mohan
Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America

Yes, thank you. Your margins have clearly been very impressive, so I have one question each on product and one on services gross margins. On product gross margins, that's clearly benefiting from a very strong mix. Tim, I'm curious, how sustainable do you think these mix trends are from the data that you see, and can you share any thoughts across how the Pro and Pro Max mix compare to prior cycles? On the services side, if I could just ask that too, when you look at the gross margins there, that's been really impressive.

Can you give us some sense of where within services you're seeing particularly favorable mix trends, and how should investors think about the trajectory of these margins, given some of the sizable investments you're making to drive very successful areas like content for TV+ as an example? Thank you.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Wamsi, it's Tim. In terms of the mix, you know, we don't comment directly on mix, but what I would tell you is that we saw strong demand across the iPhone 13 family. In fact, we had several of the top-selling models in various markets, including the top five in the U.S. and Australia, the top four in urban China, two of the top three in the U.K., three of the top four in France and Germany, and four of the top six in Japan. Certainly based on some external data that I've seen, it does seem to say that we are gaining share as well. We feel quite good about the momentum of iPhone. I should add that we were constrained during the quarter.

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Wamsi, on the services side, you were asking about, you know, gross margin there. As you know, our services business in aggregate is accretive to overall company margin. As you know, our services portfolio is very broad, and it contains businesses with very different margin profiles. The difference in margin profile is due in part to the nature of those businesses and in part to the way that we account for them. In some cases, we account on a net basis as opposed to a gross basis. As a result, the services gross margin percentage over time will be influenced by the relative growth of the different businesses within the portfolio.

You know, we do not guide at the product and services level, but I think you've seen the guidance that we provided for the March quarter at the total company level, 42.5%-43.5%. Obviously very strong compared to our recent history, and so we're very pleased with that.

Wamsi Mohan
Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America

Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Luca.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thank you, Wamsi. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

We'll take our next question from Kyle McNealy with Jefferies.

Kyle McNealy
SVP in Equity Research, Jefferies

Hi. Thanks very much. Congrats on the solid iPhone result. That's very very good. I assume that you may have prioritized iPhone to the extent there may be similar components that are used for iPhone and iPad. Can you just level set me on that if that's not the case? If it is, should we see a recovery in iPad as you move past your prime iPhone selling season and you may have, you know, better access to components or better supply as we move through the next few months of the year?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yeah. Kyle, it's Tim. From a supply constraint point of view, as you recall, we said that in Q1, the December quarter, that we would have constraints more than six, and we clearly did have constraints more than six. For March, we're saying that we will do better or have less constraints than we had in the December quarter. If you look at the commonality between different products, there is some, but generally, the challenge is on legacy nodes, and these legacy nodes are by supplier. It's much more focused on the supplier than anything else and versus us, you know, behind the curtain finding a place to take it. There's not none of that, but there is some of that.

Largely we have to take it where the shortages are.

Kyle McNealy
SVP in Equity Research, Jefferies

Okay, great. Can you give us any other color on kind of the trajectory of iPad and, you know, what's impacting this quarter and where it might go in the March and the June quarter?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

The issue with iPad, and it was a very significant constraint in the December quarter, was very much on these legacy nodes that I had talked about. Virtually all the problem was in that area. Overall, we're not guiding by product or constraint by product level. Overall, we do see an improvement in the March quarter in terms of the constraints going down versus what they were in the December quarter.

Kyle McNealy
SVP in Equity Research, Jefferies

Okay, great. Thanks very much. Congrats again.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thank you.

Kyle McNealy
SVP in Equity Research, Jefferies

On the solid results all around.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Oh, thanks very much.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thank you, Kyle. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Thank you very much.

Shannon Cross
Founder and Principal, Cross Research

Talk a bit about the Mac business. You know, looking back, it's up about 50% from the calendar 2019 revenue. You did almost $11 billion this quarter, and you're still working through the M1 transition. You know, can you talk about where you see the opportunity to gain share? What are really sort of the target markets that you think you can go after, you know, in order to grow this, you know, beyond, I think it was about $37 billion in the last twelve months. Thank you. I have a follow-up.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yeah. Shannon, thank you for the question. Mac set an all-time revenue record at $10.9 billion for the quarter. That was up 25%. As you point out, the last six quarters for the Mac have been the top six revenue quarters of all time. What's further very good about this is we set all-time revenue records in Americas, in Europe, and the rest of Asia-Pacific, and we set a December quarter record in Greater China. It's not narrowed to a particular geographic area that we're doing well in. It's you know, almost across the board. The response is very much because of M1, and we got even more response with the MacBook Pro that we launched during the Q1 timeframe.

Both the upgraders, which we had a record number of upgraders for the December quarter, but also in markets like China, 6 out of 10 sales are to people new to the Mac. It's you know, powered by both upgraders and switchers. Customer satisfaction is off the charts. What I see this as is a product that will be very successful in a number of different markets, from education to business, to the creative industry and in all geographic markets. We're not limiting ourselves.

Shannon Cross
Founder and Principal, Cross Research

Great. Thank you. Luca, can you talk a bit more on Services? Just, you know, obviously outperformed your guidance or your expectations as well as certainly where we were at. You know, what were the things that really outperformed and maybe what trends are you seeing that is, you know, driving the extra revenue? Thank you.

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Yes, Shannon. I mean, it was really great on all fronts. We set December quarter records in every geographic segment. As I mentioned earlier, an all-time record for cloud, for music, for video, for advertising, for payment services. December quarter record in the App Store. We've done, as you said, better than we were expecting at the beginning of the quarter. This overperformance has been, you know, spread around the world and spread around our services categories. The reality is, you know, this combination of factors, the fact that the install base is growing, the fact that we continue to have more and more engagement of our customers on all the services. Paid subscriptions is a phenomenal story, right? We now have 785 million paid subs.

We've increased $165 million in the last 12 months alone, right? All these things combined are really powering the business. We're very, very pleased with the performance.

Shannon Cross
Founder and Principal, Cross Research

Okay. Thank you.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

We'll hear next from Katy Huberty with Morgan Stanley.

Katy Huberty
Research Director and Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Thank you. Can you hear me okay?

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Now we can.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yes.

Katy Huberty
Research Director and Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Okay, good. First question, just as it relates to some of the disruption you've seen on the component side, manufacturing and logistics over the past couple of years, are you starting to rethink your broader supply chain strategy or the manufacturing footprint on the back of the significant disruption? Are you happy with the overall geographic exposure that you see in the supply chain today?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Katy, if you sort of step back and look at how we've done our largest issue by far has been the chip shortage that is industry-wide and on these legacy nodes, as I had mentioned earlier. I think our supply chain actually does very well considering the shortages because it's a fast-moving supply chain. The cycle times are very short. There's very little distance between a chip being fabricated and packaged and a product going out of factory. No, I don't see that it makes a fundamental change in the supply chain.

Katy Huberty
Research Director and Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thank you. How are you thinking about the metaverse opportunity and Apple's role in that market?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Well, that's a big question. you know, we're a company in the business of innovation, so we're always exploring new and emerging technologies. you've spoken at length about how this area is very interesting to us. right now we have over 14,000 ARKit apps in the App Store, which provide incredible AR experiences for millions of people today. we see a lot of potential in this space and are investing accordingly.

Katy Huberty
Research Director and Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Thank you.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thank you very much.

Katy Huberty
Research Director and Senior Analyst, Morgan Stanley

Congrats on the quarter.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thanks so much.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Amit Daryanani with Evercore.

Amit Daryanani
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Yep. Thanks for taking my question. I have two as well. You know, I guess both start from the supply chain side. You know, I think things continue to be fairly volatile, so I'd love to get your perspective if you feel, you know, if things or supply chain issues are starting to alleviate or they still remain challenging. Then maybe I missed this, but could you perhaps tell us how much revenue was left on the table in December because of these supply chain issues, and how did that number shake up in March?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yeah. Amit, what we've said in terms of December and March was that, you know, it's very difficult to estimate with great precision constraints. We said that they would be more than the Q4 or more than the September quarter, and we're saying that March will be less than the December quarter. That's the kind of verbiage that we placed around it. In terms of, is it still challenging? Yes, it is challenging. For us, we pride ourselves on getting products to customers who really want them and try to do that in a fast basis. It's frustrating that we can't always do that at the speed that we would like.

However, March is better than December, and so there's some encouraging sign there. We're not predicting.

Amit Daryanani
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Got it.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

When it will balance overall, obviously, because of the number of variables that go into such a prediction.

Amit Daryanani
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Fair enough. Tim, I think one of the topics investors can just struggle a fair bit with Apple is really just trying to understand visibility around your product roadmap. You know, I think some of your tech peers tend to be more vocal about their initiatives. Some of them go change their name when they find an initiative that's attractive, I feel. You know, you folks are spending, I think, $23 billion on R&D in 2021, so you're already spending a fair amount. You know, maybe without telling us the roadmap, could you just talk about how do you think about where to focus your R&D resources on?

To some extent, is the way to think about this R&D spend, how much of it is really done on things that are more evolutionary and products that are out there in the marketplace versus things that we haven't seen yet around potential new offerings?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

You know, we have a little different model. We try to announce things when they're ready or close to ready and try to maintain an element of surprise in there. That explains, hopefully, what we do with our roadmap, and I think that's proven successful for us and other people can do it differently, of course. It's proven good for us over time to do that. We're gonna continue to do that. In terms of deciding where we invest in, we look at areas that are sort of at the intersection of hardware, software, and services. Because we think that that's where the magic really happens, and it brings out the best in Apple.

There are areas that have more than piqued our interest, and we are investing in those. You can tell through time that we've ramped our R&D spend to even more than we were before. There's quite a bit of investment going into things that are not on the market at this point, as there always are. Thanks for the question.

Amit Daryanani
Senior Managing Director, Evercore

Thank you.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll hear next from David Vogt with UBS.

David Vogt
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, UBS

Great. Thanks for taking my call and my question. I just wanted to dive in and get your perspective on China and sort of the macro climate there and how that sort of pertains to your business as we think about it going forward. And the reason why I'm asking is we've heard some concerns that current policies might have caused a pause in this market and smartphone inventory. You know, maybe more specifically, the local vendors could be a little bit elevated going into Chinese New Year. We'd just love to get your thoughts on what you're seeing in this market around just sort of potential development, and then maybe touch on sell-in versus sell-through in that market. Then I have a follow-up.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Well, I can only comment on for us. Our sales grew 21% there in the last quarter, and we're very proud of that. I'll stay away and let other people be the economist and make the macro determinations. What we're seeing there was super impressive with all-time revenue records and a record number of upgraders and strong double-digit growth in switchers on iPhone, which is very important to us. As I've mentioned before, we had the top four selling phones in urban China. There's a lot of good there. I would remind you that iPhone was constrained in the quarter. I'm not sure where the statements are coming around about inventory.

I can't comment on whether other people have more or not. I don't know the answer to that. Thanks for the question.

David Vogt
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, UBS

Then maybe just on the supply chain, you know, obviously you've been managing it incredibly well the last 12 - 18 months, and gross margins have actually performed relatively well, you know, mix-driven, both between product and services. You know, can you help us think about sort of the quantifiable impact or maybe the cost that you're carrying due to the supply chain that may be sort of, you know, I don't want to use the word transitory, but, you know, we'd expect over the longer term that might be sort of a, you know, sort of abate a little bit and you'll get a little bit of a benefit as we get past some of these supply chain issues over the next 12 months or so.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

We're seeing inflation, and it's factored into our gross margin and OpEx that Luca reviewed with you earlier. Logistics, as I've mentioned on a previous call, is very elevated in terms of the cost of moving things around. I would hope that at least a portion of that is transitory, but the world's changed and so we'll see.

David Vogt
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, UBS

Thank you.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yeah.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Samik Chatterjee with JP Morgan.

Samik Chatterjee
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, JP Morgan

Oh, great. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple. The first question that I had was really on Apple TV+. I know some of the other players in this market have talked about slowing subscriber growth as we exit the pandemic. Curious if you can share what trends you're seeing in Apple TV and Apple TV+ and how similar or dissimilar they are, and how your content is maybe helping you on that aspect. I have a follow-up.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

You know, we don't give out subscriber numbers for Apple TV+. What we do do is give out a subscriber number for our subscription number for the total number of subscriptions that we had. I think Luca mentioned earlier, we ended the quarter at 785 million. We were incredibly pleased with that. That's a huge growth on a year-over-year basis of 165, and it counts, as you recall, both Apple branded and third party. In terms of how we're doing with TV+, we've been honored with 200 wins and 890 nominations. We're doing exactly like we had wanted to with giving storytellers a place to tell original stories and feel really good about where we are competitively and strategic position of the product.

Samik Chatterjee
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, JP Morgan

Okay. If I can just follow up, and similarly on Apple Pay, can you just help us think about when you think about the next few years, where are the biggest opportunities, either be it in terms of like geographies or either, segments, customer segments that you may not be tapping into currently and have an opportunity in? Thank you.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Well, putting aside any kind of thing that sits on our roadmap for a second in that area, which we obviously wouldn't talk about in the call, I would say that I think Apple Card has a great runway ahead of us. It was rated the number one midsize credit card and customer sat by J.D. Power and has fast become people's main credit card for many people. The growth of Apple Pay has just been stunning. It's been absolutely stunning. There's still obviously a lot more there to go and because there's still a lot of cash in the environment. I think that both of these and whatever else we might do have a great future ahead.

Samik Chatterjee
Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst, JP Morgan

Great. Congrats on the results.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thanks so much.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Chris Caso with Raymond James.

Chris Caso
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, Raymond James

Yes, thank you. Good evening. First question is just a little bit of help in interpreting the guidance. If you could speak to the March quarter, perhaps in terms of seasonality, and seasonal performance. Luca, as you mentioned, last year because of the later launch of the phone that some of that came into the March quarter and you know that was better than seasonal performance in March. You know, should we interpret because the supply constraints are easing somewhat as you go into the March quarter, that we should see something similar, that you know March quarter we'd get some better than seasonal performance? Is that the correct way to interpret your guidance?

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Well, you know, we talked about it on a year-over-year basis because, you know, that's probably how most people look at it. Just to recap what we said, first of all, we expect a record for the March quarter. We expect solid growth on a year-over-year basis. As Tim was saying, we still expect significant supply constraints, but less than what we've seen in December. I think on that basis, you can do, you know, the math around sequential. Given where we are in the environment, given the difficult compare both on iPhone and as I mentioned during my prepared remarks on services, we're very happy with the way we're guiding and the way the business is going right now.

Chris Caso
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, Raymond James

Got it. Thank you. As a follow-up question is on, you know, perhaps the sustainability and repeatability of the growth in iPhone after two very good years, you know, well-received product and the 5G upgrade cycle. I think, you know, there was a point in time when, you know, perhaps it was a view from some that iPhone was ex-growth and that's been proven wrong. You know, off of these very strong results, maybe you could speak to your level of confidence that, you know, iPhone continues to grow in the future and kind of what are the avenues for that growth.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yeah, Chris, it's Tim. What I would say is that the iPhone has become an integral part of so many people's lives now more than ever. The active install base of iPhone continues to grow and is now at an all-time high. During December, as we had mentioned, we had a record number of upgraders and grew switchers strong double digit, which I think speaks to the strength of the product. That's all in addition to an enormous customer satisfaction rating of 98% and doing well throughout the geographies. I've mentioned some of the geos that we track and how many units that we have on the top-selling model charts.

Even though this is the second product announcement that has 5G in it, we're still really in the early innings of 5G. Meaning if you look at the install base and look at how many people are on 5G versus not, you know, we don't release those exact numbers, but you can do some math and estimate those. We maintain a very optimistic view on iPhone long term.

Chris Caso
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, Raymond James

Got it. Thank you very much.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Yes. Thank you.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. I'll take our next question from Ben Bollin with Cleveland Research.

Ben Bollin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Cleveland Research

Thank you for taking the question. Tim, I'm interested in how you think about the relationship between the total iOS installed base and then, you know, the subsequent performance you see within the services or the paid subscriptions. A second part to that is how do you look at the existing services business in terms of the growth you get from, you know, customers who are already subscribers versus, you know, completely net new or greenfield subscribers?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

I think I'll let Luca comment on the second part of that. But if you back up and sort of look at how we're doing, even though we have 785 million subs, relative to the total number of products offered and the customers it's offered in, there's still a lot of room to grow there. The way that I look at it is that there's a lot more greenfield in front of us.

Luca Maestri
CFO and Senior Vice President, Apple

Ben, on the services engagement and, you know, how we think about customers, right? Obviously, it's important for us that customers are engaged on our services platforms.

You know, the ones that we have, we know that the more engaged they are, they're more likely to stay with Apple for the long term. We just obviously track all those metrics, and they're very important for us. That's why we continue to improve the quality of our offerings and the quantity over time. As you've seen, we've launched a lot of new services. We obviously care a lot about new customers as well, and that's why we, you know, keep track of the installed base and a lot of other metrics on that front. It's very similar to what we do with products. I mean, also for products, we care a lot about upgraders, we care a lot about switchers.

It's obviously the combination of the two that, you know, when you put it together, you know, provides the level of growth that you've actually seen in our Services business. I mean, the last, you know, the last 12 months, we've done over $72 billion of revenue on Services. It's the size of a Fortune 50 company. It couldn't happen without contribution from both existing and new customers.

Ben Bollin
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Cleveland Research

Thank you.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thanks. Can we have the next question, please?

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Harsh Kumar with Piper Sandler.

Harsh Kumar
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Yeah. Hey, guys. First of all, congratulations on stellar quarter in December and all the records that the Apple community has set. Tim, I had a question on the content on Apple TV. When we look at the Apple content that you guys put out on TV, original content, it's typically very socially responsible and healthy, for example, like Ted Lasso. Has this, in effect, created a constraint or a hesitancy of some sort for Apple to go and purchase studios when they come up? Or have those decisions been primarily financial or otherwise?

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

We don't make purely financial decisions about the content. We try to find great content that has a reason for being. We love shows like Ted Lasso and several of the other shows as well that have a reason for existing and may have a good message and may make people feel better at the end of it. But I don't view that we've narrowed our universe of things we're selecting from. There's plenty to pick from out there, and I think that we're doing a pretty good job of it as we speak.

Harsh Kumar
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Fair enough. My follow-up was the Apple vision of healthcare in the future. You guys have sort of cautiously, you know, approached healthcare with Apple Watch and iPhone. It's mostly a preventative sort of approach. It provides you updates. Do you see a situation down the line where Apple perhaps plays a more active role, either through the Watch or some other device where perhaps a doctor or a hospital mandates that the Watch be worn effectively for critical and vital monitoring? I was curious if you could just give us some color on how you guys think about healthcare and Apple Watch and that confluence.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Well, with the Apple Watch, there's literally not days that go by without me getting notes about someone that's received a health alert. Maybe it's to do with their cardiovascular health. Or, more recently, a lot of people have told me that they fell and was knocked unconscious and couldn't respond, and the watch responded for them to emergency contacts and emergency personnel. There's a lot that we're doing today. My sense has always been that there's more here. I don't wanna get into a roadmap discussion in the call. We continue to kind of pull the string and see where it takes us.

We're really satisfied with how we're doing in this area, because we are fundamentally changing people's lives and in some cases, saving people's lives. It's an area of great interest.

Harsh Kumar
Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst, Piper Sandler

Very helpful, Tim. Thank you.

Tim Cook
CEO, Apple

Thanks for the question.

Tejas Gala
Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Apple

Thank you. A replay of today's call will be available for two weeks on Apple Podcasts as a webcast on apple.com/investor and via telephone. The numbers for the telephone replay are 888-203-1112 or 719-457-0820. Please enter confirmation code 3599903. These replays will be available by approximately 5 P.M. Pacific Time today. Members of the press with additional questions can contact Josh Rosenstock at 408-862-1142. Financial analysts can contact me with additional questions at 669-227-2402. Thank you again for joining us.

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