Apple said it generated $5 billion in revenue in fiscal Q3 from services (App Store, iTunes, Apple Pay, AppleCare, and other licensing/service fees), “a new all-time record” and an increase of 12 per cent over last year, “thanks primarily to strong growth from apps”.

It added that its App Store revenue increased 24 per cent, with the number of transacting customers up by 19 per cent.

“Services growth was particularly strong in China, where the App Store revenue more than doubled year over year. China-based developers have created 250,000 apps for our China App Store and the response from our customers has been tremendous,” said Luca Maestri, SVP and CFO, during the quarterly earnings call.

Overall, Apple’s results for Greater China were described as “especially impressive”, with revenue more than doubling year-on-year to more than $13 billion.

Maestri also said Apple Watch now has 8,500 apps (the App Store has around 1.5 million) and that the anticipated watchOS 2 “will bring native apps which are going to be killer to the Watch”.

CEO Tim Cook said he believes doctors and researchers at hospitals in the US and Europe are already putting Apple Watch to work in improving patients’ lives and that “this is just the beginning of what this new platform can deliver.”

“With Apple watchOS 2, developers have the ability to build richer and more powerful native apps for Apple Watch, taking advantage of the heart rate sensor, the Digital Crown, accelerometer and more, ushering in a whole new class of apps designed specifically for the wrist,” he said.

He also said messaging and activity features are among the most popular apps and social networking apps including Twitter, WeChat and LINE are seeing the most usage among third party apps.

IBM
Meanwhile, Maestri shed some light on Apple’s partnership with IBM through which IBM released 13 new MobileFirst for iOS apps in the June quarter, including new apps in retail banking and healthcare, as well as new horizontal apps for HR and sales.

There are now 35 apps in IBM’s MobileFirst for iOS catalogue that connect users to big data and analytics on their iPads or iPhones, with a total of 100 apps to be available by the end of 2015, he said.

On a group level, Apple posted a net profit for the quarter to 27 June 2015 of $10.68 billion, up 37.8 per cent year-on-year, on revenue of $49.61 billion, up 32.5 per cent.