Apple’s iPhone sales and services revenue was the star of the tech giant’s latest quarter, but Macs quietly outperformed it, helped by growing demand for AI workloads.
Wall Street investors had expected Mac sales to be in the low $8 billion range, but Apple reported $8.4 billion in the second quarter ended March 28. That’s a remarkable number for a non-core division of the tech giant’s business. Additionally, profit-forward investors believed that Mac sales would be essentially flat year-over-year. Instead, Mac sales rose 6% on an annual basis, the company told investors. The company’s total revenue was $111.2 billion, an increase of 17% year over year.
Apple attributes some of the Mac’s growth to recent product launches such as the well-received MacBook Neo. However, these fun and colorful computers were only available for a few weeks after pre-orders opened on March 4th. Realistically, most units ship in mid-to-late March, and some demand may have been pushed into April as some models sold out.
Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday that customer demand for Neo was “unexpected” and higher than Apple expected. He also noted that Apple set a record for the number of first-time Mac customers in the quarter thanks to Neo.
Cook attributed the increase in Mac sales to the use of platforms for running local AI models, such as OpenClaw. This came as a bit of a surprise to Apple, as Mac mini and Mac Studio devices have sold out in recent weeks.
Cook said of the Mac sales, “Both are great platforms for AI and agent tools, and customer awareness of that is moving faster than we anticipated, so we’ve seen higher-than-expected demand.” He also noted that the Mac mini is the best-selling desktop in the Chinese market, which has recently been hit by the OpenClaw craze.
Still, Mac revenue was flat quarter-over-quarter, suggesting this new demand has yet to take off. Cook said it may take “several months” for Apple to reach a balance between supply and demand for Mac mini and Studio models.
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“We’re not at a stage where we can say that this (restriction) is going to end anytime soon. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself, other than the fact that we’re underestimating demand,” Cook said.
Enterprise demand for Macs also played a role. Apple noted that several large companies, including Perplexity, are turning to the Mac as their preferred platform for building enterprise-grade AI assistants.
He also said that Apple has “limited supply of MacBook Neos” and has even seen school systems like Kansas City Public Schools discontinue Neo Chromebooks.
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