Apple bigs up enterprise play after record Q4

Services revenue also hits record high for vendor

Apple has talked up its play in the enterprise space after reporting its best ever Q4 revenue.

For the three months ending 30 September Apple's revenue hit $52.6bn (£40.2bn), a year-on-year increase of 12 per cent.

On an earnings call, a transcript of which can be found on Seeking Alpha, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "As we closed the books on a very successful fiscal 2017, I have to say I couldn't be more excited about Apple's future.

"This was our biggest year ever in most parts of the world with all-time record revenue in the US, western Europe, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Africa, central and eastern Europe, and Asia.

"We had a particularly strong finish this year, generating our highest September quarter revenue ever as year-over-year growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter."

Apple saw strong growth in its iPad business, shipping 11 per cent more units than the same quarter last year at 10.3 million units.

Alongside the strong quarter, Apple also recorded its highest-ever annual Mac revenue at $25.8bn.

Enterprise push

Both Cook and Apple CFO Luca Maestri talked up Apple's progress in the enterprise space, pointing out both demand for products and services.

"We also had great results in enterprise and education, with double-digit growth in worldwide customer purchases of iPad and Mac in both markets," Cook said.

Maestri said that partnerships like the one recently formed with Accenture demonstrate Apple's commitment to its enterprise play.

"We are seeing great momentum with our enterprise initiatives," he said. "During the September quarter, we announced a new partnership with Accenture, which is creating a dedicated iOS practice in select locations around the world.

"Experts from Apple are co-locating with this team and together they'll be launching new tools and services that help enterprise clients transform how they engage with customers using iPhone and iPad.

"Examples include services to build new customer experiences, and to facilitate iOS integration with enterprise systems to help businesses take greater advantage of data from Internet of Things platforms and to enable the smooth transfer of existing legacy applications and data to modern iOS apps."

Apple also saw a record quarter in terms of services, with revenue hitting $8.5bn.

Maestri said that Apple's services business has now grown to the size of an independent company.

"A few quarters ago we established a goal of doubling our fiscal 2016 services revenue of $24bn by the year 2020 and we are well on our way to meeting that goal," he said.

"In fiscal 2017, we reached $30bn [revenue], making our services business already the size of a Fortune 100 company."