Apple will stop announcing exactly how many iPhones, iPads, and Macs it’s sold — and it comes right after a big miss on iPhone sales (AAPL)

tim cook

Apple is going to stop disclosing how many iPhones, iPads, and Macs it sells each quarter.
The news comes right after Apple announced earnings for its most recent quarter — a quarter where it beat on earnings and revenue, but whiffed big on iPhone sales.
The company's stock has dropped as much as 7% in after-hours trading.

Apple's sales figures are about to get a lot less transparent.

On Thursday, the company announced on its quarterly earnings call that it will stop breaking out the number of iPhones, iPads, and Macs it sells in each quarter.

The surprising news comes after Apple failed to hit Wall Street's expectations for iPhone sales in the most recent quarter, which sent the stock plummeting about 5%. The announcement from Apple CFO Luca Maestri sent the company's share price plunging even further, and as of writing it now hovers about 7% down from market close.

"As we have stated many times, our objective is to make great products and services that enrich people's lives, and to provide an unparalleled customer experience, so that our users are highly satisfied, loyal, and engaged," Maestri said.

"As we accomplish these objectives, strong financial results follow. As demonstrated by our financial performance in recent years, the number of units sold in any 90-day period is not necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business."

Apple will still report the revenues brought in from the sales of each device type.

Apple sold 46.9 million iPhones in the quarter, barely growing 0.4% on the year prior, and well below analysts' expectations of 48.4 million. Quarterly revenues ($62.9 billion) and earnings per share ($2.91) both beat expectations, but the iPhone whiff — combined with a revenue forecast for the holiday quarter that was lower than some analyst expectations — seems to have spooked investors.

Meanwhile, iPad sales were down 6% on last year, to 9.6 million, which Mac unit sales were flat, at 5.3 million.

Notably, this move also comes just days after Apple unveiled new gadgets, including a revamped MacBook Air laptop and redesigned iPad Pro tablet.

Here are all the key numbers:

Q4 EPS: $2.91, up 40% year-over-year, versus expectations of $2.78
Q4 Revenue: $62.9 billion, up 19.5% year-over-year, versus expectations of $61.44 billion
Gross margin: 38.2%, up 0.7% year-over-year, versus expectations of 38.3%
iPhone units sold: 46.9 million, up 0.4% year-over-year, versus expectations of 48.4 million
iPhone average sales price: $793, up 28% year-over-year, versus expectations of $729
iPad units sold: 9.6 million, down 6% year-over-year
Mac units sold: 5.3 million, flat year-over-year
Q1 2018 guidance: Between $89 billion and $93 billion versus consensus expectation of $92.74 billion