Apple’s Semi-Soft Quarter In Charts

Apple reported December quarter results this afternoon.

In general, Apple is still performing well, but growth continues to decelerate, and some numbers were short of expectations. In particular, iPhone shipments — Apple’s most important product — didn’t beat Wall Street’s predictions, with almost 48 million iPhones shipped vs. 50 million expected. (Remember, the Street wants to be surprised by Apple’s results — even just meeting expectations is perceived as a negative.) Apple also did not provide an Earnings Per Share (EPS) forecast for the March quarter, which some may see as a show of weakness.

Mac shipments also seem to have peaked for good. (Update: More discussion of this here.) But the iPad was strong, with almost 23 million shipments — almost 50% growth over last year.

Below, I’ve broken out some of the most important stats and trends in chart format. Note that all of these charts reflect Apple’s newly reclassified product segments, reported today for the first time. (Thus my delay in publishing.) Apple created Accessories as its own category, bundled Software and Services with iTunes, and removed Peripherals as a separate category. (It also stopped breaking out notebook vs. desktop Mac shipments, which have been split roughly between 70/30 to 80/20 for a while.)