Apple hails enterprise business strength as it reports record-breaking quarter

Revenue hits all-time high at $78.4bn

Apple CEO Tim Cook has claimed that "great progress" is being made in its enterprise business on an earnings call for its Q1, in which it posted its highest ever revenue figure.

For the three months to 31 December, net sales at Apple rose three per cent annually to $78.4bn (£62bn) - an Apple record. Over the same period, net profits fell three per cent to $17.9bn.

"We're thrilled to report that our holiday-quarter results generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way," said Cook in a statement. "We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch. Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline."

On an earnings call delving further into the results, Cook highlighted success in Apple's enterprise business.

"We're making great progress in the enterprise market alongside our major partners," he said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. "The combination of iOS and Cisco technology is giving companies everywhere the opportunity to vastly improve the user experience for their mobile employees."

Apple and Cisco teamed up in September 2015, connecting Cisco networks and Apple devices with the aim of improving enterprise communications.

"With enhanced networking performance, up to eight times faster roaming, better reliability for apps, and native voice experience, we're excited about how much more productive the workforce will be with these great capabilities," added Cook. "In fact, the total number of joint customer opportunities has grown over 70 per cent since last quarter."

Apple has also linked up with IBM on its enterprise push, working together to bring the power of big data to iPhones and iPads.

"Enterprises are using IBM's new Mobile at Scale design and development model to deploy multiple iOS apps with speed and efficiency," he said. "For example, Finnair is transforming aircraft maintenance, and CEMEX is revamping activities from attracting new clients to invoicing to after-sales support. And later this spring, SAP will be rolling out its SDK for iOS, providing its community of more than 2.5 million developers with the tools to build powerful native iOS apps that leverage the SAP HANA cloud platform. We're delighted with how these partnerships are making it even easier for enterprise customers to transform how work gets done with iOS."

Loay Lawrence, commercial director at Apple partner Vohkus, told CRN that he has been impressed with Apple's enterprise focus, especially when it comes to its tie-ups with other vendors.

"We are seeing increased demand for Apple products in the enterprise market," he said. "They're investing in solutions for the enterprise and working very closely with Cisco. So they are right to highlight it. We've seen an increase in enterprise and mid-market customers using Apple devices as consumption devices. We work very closely with Apple and they're serious about the enterprise."

Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView, was not bowled over by Apple's overall performance.

"Apple is a sound, highly profitable and cash-rich mega company," he said. "But it isn't really exciting anymore. Still no hint of a new Apple genre - and that's what they really need."