Apple Q2 2013 hardware sales: By the numbers

Apple's Q1 2013 earnings are out, and the data provided gives us an insight into how well the company performed over the last quarter relative to historical data.

Let's begin with Apple's flagship product, the iPhone.

The iPhone did remarkably well, selling 37.4 million over the quarter, compared to 35.1 million in the year-ago quarter. Compared to the year-ago quarter, this represents a 7 percent unit increase, and a 3 percent revenue increase. However, compared to the previous quarter, unit sales are down by 22 percent, and revenues down by an eye-watering 25 percent. This was to be expected, given that the previous quarter was a holiday quarter and the first full quarter following the release of the iPhone 5.

Moving on to the iPad, Apple sold 19.5 million tablets (iPads and iPad Minis combined), up from 11.8 million from the same period a year ago. 

Last quarter was the second best quarter for the iPad, only trumped by the strong sales over the previous quarter. Year-on-year it represented a 65 percent unit sales increase, and a 40 percent increase in revenue. Compared to the previous quarter, it represents a 15 percent decline in unit sales, and an 18 percent decrease in revenue, but again, that was a holiday quarter, and sales were buoyed by the iPad 4 and iPad mini.

However, since Apple doesn't break down sales by model, we can't tell if the iPad Mini is cannibalizing sales of the full-sized model. It seems, though, that the increase in unit sales is keeping revenues buoyed.

So far, so good. But that's set to change from now on. 

During the last quarter Apple only managed to shift 3.95 million Macs, down a fraction both on the year-ago quarter and the previous quarter. The Q2 quarter Mac sales represents a 2 percent unit decline but a 7 percent revenue increase compared to a year-ago quarter, and a 3 percent unit decline and 1 percent revenue decline compared to the previous quarter.

The refreshed Mac lineup that we saw just before the holiday period failed to translate into strong sales over the quarter. However, Mac sales are remaining stable, while PC sales are falling through the floor.

iPod sales have also stalled. Whereas once Apple could have relied on non-holiday quarter sales in the region of 10 million (increasing to over 20 million during a holiday quarter), this quarter's sales of 5.6 million are down 27 percent compared to the year-ago quarter and 56 percent compared to the previous quarter. iPod revenues are also down, 20 percent and 55 percent respectively.

The era of the iPod is drawing to a close.

Overall, quarterly sales for the iPhone and iPad were good, showing very strong upward trajectories.

Cumulatively, Apple has sold almost 375 million iPods, over 356 million iPhones, and nearly 140.5 million iPads since the respective products were first released. In 23 quarters, Apple has sold almost as many iPhones as it has sold iPods over 46 quarters, and sales of the smartphone are likely to overtake the aging media player during this quarter if the respective sales trajectories hold true.

Put that another way: the iPhone has sold twice as fast as the iPod did.