Executive Briefing
Apple’s pandemic year, Starbucks and the reopening
Also: New office hours availability for members.
By Dan Frommer on Friday, January 29, 2021 at 8:00 am
Apple finished its pandemic year with a blowout quarter.
This week, it reported its first-ever $100-billion-plus revenue quarter: $111.4 billion, to be exact, for the December 2020 period. That represented 21% year-over-year growth, Apple’s highest rate in more than five years.
Some of this outperformance was because the new iPhone shipped later in 2020 than in previous years. But each of Apple’s product categories — iPhone, iPad, Mac, Services, and Wearables/etc. — grew in the double digits percentage-wise. And the company reported record sales in each of its geographic regions, including China. It generated almost $29 billion in profit.
This is interesting because it shows that despite the ongoing pandemic, economic and employment crises, retail store closures and restrictions, changing tastes and culture, and general societal instability, consumers continued to choose Apple products in record amounts, not substituting for less-expensive or simply different alternatives.
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