Apple will no longer report quarterly unit sales of Mac, iPads, and especially iPhones. The change gave investors jitters on Friday.<\/b>
\nFor as long as anyone can remember, every three months, Apple has told the world how many iPhone, iPads and Mac computers it has sold. It\u2019s been one of the standards the company has used to show how popular its products are remain.
But from here on out, Apple will be keeping those numbers to itself. And on Friday, Apple\u2019s investors weren\u2019t too happy about the company\u2019s decision.
Apple shares fell nearly 7 percent, to $206.80, as Wall Street sussed out the company\u2019s announcement that beginning with its December business quarter, it would no longer give updates on the number of iPhones, iPads and Macs it sells each quarter. Apple made the disclosure during a Thursday conference call to discuss its fiscal fourth-quarter results.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said the company\u2019s decision to change that aspect of its reporting structure was based on the company facing new realities with its major business lines.
\u201cA unit of sale is less relevant for us today than it was in the past, given our breadth of our portfolio and the wider sales price dispersion within any given product line,\u201d Maestri said during a conference call in which he was joined by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook.
Apple\u2019s decision, along with the company giving a disappointing sales forecast for its fiscal first quarter, combined to weigh on investor sentiment Friday. Apple said it expects revenue for the three months of October, November and December to be between $89 billion and $93 billion. That outlook, which potentially falls below analysts\u2019 forecasts of $93 billion, was seen as especially concerning due to the fact that the final quarter of every year is always Apple\u2019s busiest business period.
Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, called Apple\u2019s decision to no longer give iPhone sales numbers \u201ca tough pill to swallow.
The transparency of the Cupertino story takes a major dent given that tracking iPhone units has become habitual to any investor that has closely followed the Apple story for the last decade plus,\u201d Ives said.
The move toward no longer reporting unit sales of the iPhone, in particular, was viewed by many Apple analysts as evidence that the company knows that while sales of iPhones are flattening out, and may decline, Apple believes it can make up for such a scenario with higher average selling prices (ASPs).
Evidence of that could be seen in Apple\u2019s fourth-quarter results. The company reported it sold 46.89 million iPhones during the quarter, which was just 0.5 percent higher than the 46.68 million iPhones during the same period a year ago.
However, revenue from iPhone sales reached $37.19 billion, a 29 percent gain from last year\u2019s sales of $28.85 billion. Apple\u2019s fourth quarter this year included two months of sales of the new iPhone XS, which starts at $999, and the iPhone XS Max, and its $1,099 initial price tag. Based on Apple\u2019s revenue and unit sales, the average price of iPhones sold during the fourth quarter was $793.
\u201cWhile it\u2019s frustrating how Apple, with no warning, decided to pull the plug on unit metrics, our core bull thesis does not change on the story and to some extent is emboldened by the (approximately) $800 ASP story and a robust services business poised to hit $50 billion-plus in (Apple\u2019s) 2020 fiscal year,\u201d Ives said.
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Trump denies iPhone use that reportedly allows for China, Russia spying\t That potential for services growth has been one of CEO Cook\u2019s biggest areas of emphasis in recent years, and Cook has predicted Apple will achieve $50 billion in sales from online services by 2020. The company showed it remains on that path, as it reported a record $9.98 billion in services sales in its fourth quarter on Thursday.
\u201cSome investors will assume iPhone units are trending poorly,\u201d said Michael Olson, of Piper Jaffray. \u201cWe believe Apple is simply trying to change the focus towards the overall installed base and services revenue per user.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Similarity rank: 9.5<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: 1<\/div>\n

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