iPhone sales are down, but Apple’s subscriptions are growing fast

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook. (credit: Chris Foresman)

Apple posted its third-quarter earnings for 2023, and they were a bit of a mixed bag. Overall, the company beat the expectations of analysts who were predicting things would be grimmer, but hardware revenue was down compared to last year.

Almost all of Apple's hardware product categories sold less this quarter than they did in the same quarter in 2022. iPhone revenue was $39.67 billion, down 2 percent. Mac revenue dropped to $6.84 billion, down 7 percent. And the iPad fell the farthest percentage-wise: 20 percent, at $5.79 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the drop in iPad sales could be attributed to the fact that Apple was riding high after a major iPad Air launch during this period last year, with nothing quite so exciting this time around. The Mac's revenue drop may be part of a larger trend in the PC market—consumers upgraded a bunch during a spree amid the COVID-19 pandemic, so many are satisfied with what they have for now.