The iPhone X is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to Apple's earnings. The company just reported its first quarter 2018 financial results, a period that includes the busy holiday shopping season.
On one hand, overall iPhone sales were down, with Apple recording 77.3 million units sold. That's about 1.3% below the 78.3 million iPhones that Apple sold during last year's holiday period.
On the flip side, the 10th-anniversary iPhone helped push Apple's iPhone revenue up by 13% compared to the same quarter last year. This contributed to Apple reporting its biggest quarter ever with $88.3 billion in revenue.
The iPhone X, according to Apple, has been the top-selling iPhone every week since it went on sale. And yet it wasn't enough to prevent Apple from seeing a dip in holiday iPhone sales, which almost never happens.
Price matters
But while sales were down, the big jump in iPhone revenue is undoubtedly attributable to the iPhone X price. The starting price for the iPhone X is $999 / £999 / AU$1,579. Sell enough phones at $1,000 apiece, and you'll see the return.
The iPhone X is heralded by many as the most revolutionary iPhone ever, with new features such as Face ID, a TrueDepth camera and Animoji infusing some excitement into the 10-year-old iPhone line.
Yet reports of the iPhone X being a failure have increased in recent weeks, with some even suggesting it would drop out of production in spring 2018.
Today's results don't paint it as a failure... yet. The iPhone X certainly brought in the revenue, despite lower-than-expected sales for the iPhone overall.
However, the year isn't going to get better for Apple; the holiday quarter is traditionally the biggest, so iPhone sales will only go down from here. What iPhone sales look like in Q2, Q3 and Q4 compared to their year-ago counterparts will paint a clearer picture of how the iPhone X is faring.
That is, as clear as we can get. Apple rarely breaks out sales figures for individual products, so we'll have to read between the lines.
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