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Apple profits soar despite higher-than-ever prices

Apple just released its first-quarter earnings and the company has done blindingly well, smashing records with a reported $74.6 billion in sales – basically, Apple has made more moolah than any other company over a three-month period. And that’s with its mobile hardware rocking a higher price tag than ever before.

Apple has long had a reputation for setting almost prohibitively high prices on its hardware, to maintain an air of exclusivity. Over the last year those prices have gone up at a rate of knots, yet there’s no sign of people’s interest abating, with the latest iPhones doing stellar business.

The iPhone 6 Plus, which starts at a tear-jerking £619, has sold impressively well considering the steep asking price and the so-called ‘bendgate‘ controversy, where users reported their phones bending to the shape of their bum when kept in a back pocket.

Some long-term fans reported disappointment when they discovered Apple would be shifting to bigger displays, much more in line with its Android competition. However, many iPhone fans were desperate for anything to break the normal cycle of minor internal upgrades every 12 months, and users flocked to buy the new hardware as soon as it launched.

So, the combination of hiked prices and a significant upgrade over older models seems to have worked wonders for Apple, at a time when many critics (us included) said it was do-or-die time for the Cupertino company.

That said, there is still a very real public interest in another smaller, 4.5-inch device being released. Rumours regarding a fresh, dinky iPhone are still rife, despite the fact that they’ve been quashed at almost every level, even with folk at the component end of manufacture nixing the stories before they gain momentum.

Perhaps Apple is planning to do a Coca Cola and roll out an ‘iPhone Classic’ in a while, for people who have become utterly sick of the feeling of a massive slab of aluminium resting in their kecks? Perhaps said people will welcome the device, despite such huge price increases?

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