Apple’s Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri touted the tech giant’s rise in payments income as a contributor to its services category revenue during a fourth-quarter earnings call last Thursday.
Both Maestri and CEO Tim Cook pointed to all-time record revenue in Q4 from payments, but did not disclose the dollar amount earned. Cook noted Apple’s overall services category brought in $22.3 billion, a 16% year-over-year increase over the 2022 quarter.
Maestri said the Cupertino, California-based company’s gains in payments were “very, very important” as part of a strategy to get users of Apple’s hardware to also start paying for its software.
“We’ve attracted more people that are actually now using additional features on our devices and we are able to monetize that,” Maestri said.
The tech giant is facing a slowdown of iPhone sales, according to its Q4 financial results. iPhone revenue for the 12 months ended September 30, 2023 was about $200.6 billion, compared to $205.5 billion for the 12 months ended September 24, 2022, a 2.4% decrease.
iPhone sales have historically been the leading source of revenue for Apple, so the company has started looking to services, including payments, as a growth area, according to Creative Strategies President Carolina Milanesi said in an email.
“When payment is so seamless and well integrated with the phone and the watch it makes it easy for users to default to Apple Pay and to Apple Card if they have one,” Milanesi said.
Apple did not immediately respond to questions about the performance of its payments business.
