At your service: Apple increasingly looking past iPhone for revenue growth

Apple exceeded all expectations this week with its quarterly results, and while the actual figures were as impressive as ever, so was the manner in which revenues grew.

While we may mainly think of the company in terms of its highly desirable devices, it wasn’t just fancy smartphones and tablets that helped it edge closer to a $1 trillion market cap. It also saw a huge rise in turnover from its fast-growing software and services segment which includes Apple Music, Apple Pay, the App Store, Apple Care and iCloud.

Services revenue for the third quarter totalled a record $9.5 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $9.1 billion and jumping by 31 per cent compared to the $7.27 billion recorded in the same three months a year earlier.

The world's most valuable technology company is expecting to see more significant growth from this part of its business. Chief executive Tim Cook said Apple is well on track to meet its target set early last year of doubling services revenues to more than $14 billion a quarter by 2020.

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Apple, which is forecasting total revenues of $60-$62 billion for its fourth quarter after posting third-quarter revenue of $53.3 billion, is hopeful that services can take up where other offerings are flagging.

The segment has been far outpacing iPhone revenue in growth terms over the last few quarters. Moreover, the segment has more than doubled in terms of turnover since 2013 when sales hovered around the $4 billion mark.

Apple hit a new milestone on Wednesday when its shares surpassed the $200 mark for the first time as they jumped to $201.32 in early trading.

While all eyes continue to focus on the new must-have gadgets that might be coming our way and how they might push revenues even higher, the real money earners for the company may in future come from much less fancy sources.