By Jason Snell
January 29, 2016 2:30 PM PT
Chartopia: More charts about Apple
Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
I dug out my old Apple spreadsheets and generated some more charts based on Apple’s quarterly results, disclosed earlier this week. One of the problems with charting Apple revenue historically is that the company has revised its accounting practices a few times over the past few years. However, the way it counts individual sales remains more or less identical, as does the count of overall revenue. So I was able to create some charts with a longer time range than the ones I posted on Tuesday. Here are a few, all using four-quarter rolling averages in order to wash out seasonality.
Here’s the history of the rise of the iPhone:

Here’s the history of Mac sales for the past 10 years, generally moving upward—even as the overall PC category began to shrink:

Here’s a year-by-year chart measuring historical Mac sales:

Remember the iPod? Here’s its sales history up to the point where Apple consigned it back into the “other products” category:

Here’s Apple’s revenue growth over time:

Here’s a comparative plot of unit sales. You can see the iPod crest and fade, the Mac motor along, the iPad boom and then slack off, and the iPhone shoot into the stratosphere:

And here’s the same data, but plotted in terms of year-over-year growth. (Yes, in the early years the iPhone had a couple of quarters of off-the-charts growth.) This chart shows how Apple’s product-line growth has slowed, especially recently:

If you appreciate articles like this one, support us by becoming a Six Colors subscriber. Subscribers get access to an exclusive podcast, members-only stories, and a special community.