Apple’s Playful Game of Hide‑and‑Seek: Numbers Gone Missing
Remember when Apple first yanked the headphone jack? Then the humble Home button? The tech giant is now quietly dropping the most cherished performance metric of the last 20 years.
What’s on the Radar?
- Unit sales data for iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers (given to investors since 1998).
- Average selling price calculation—a staple for analysts.
- Health gauge of the entire Apple ecosystem.
Apple announced on Thursday, Nov 1 that it will stop sharing these figures. “Kids are bundling everything these days,” the company says: iPhones with AirPods, Apple Music, iCloud, you name it. Apples are busy holding hands.
Investors’ Reaction: The Shockwave Hits the Wall
“Companies typically stop reporting metrics when the metrics are about to turn. This is not a good look for Apple,” says Walter Piecyk, analyst at BTIG Research.
The move sent Apple’s shares tumbling. After‑hours trading saw a drop of about 7%, landing at a final close of US$207.81 (S$281) – roughly 6.5% below the session’s peak.
“Apple is a complex company with a lot of moving parts,” states Ivan Fienseth, analyst at Tigress. “I think they need to give more transparency to their shareholders and not less.”
New Numbers, New Light?
While the unit sales data vanish, Apple will now flush out:
- Cost‑of‑sales data for its total product business.
- Cost‑of‑sales data for its total services business.
These figures will let investors dissect gross margins by sector—a fresh lens compared to the previous single corporate margin.
Why This Matters
- Armor Up Hardware’s Profits – See how lucrative Apple’s flagship gadgets really are.
- Unveil Services Margins – For the first time, the company breaks down the margins on its subscription empire, which jumped to US$10 billion in the last quarter (a 17% rise).
Fast‑growing subscription services like Apple Music ($9.99/month) add flavor to Apple’s bouquet, but some—like iCloud storage—carry higher margins than the music side, which deals with licensing costs and heavy competition from Spotify.
Investors’ Toolkit
“You would value the music business with a revenue multiple closer to Spotify, and the cloud business with a subscription‑software multiple,” says Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora Inc. “Having some sense of which business is growing faster would be nice.”
Apple projects revenue of US$89‑93 billion for its fiscal first quarter ending December. With granular cost‑of‑sales data, the scene for investor analysis becomes clearer—though the blend of lucrative and not-so‑lucky margins still needs a dash of detective work.
