Other Products: Apple’s fast-growing island of misfit toys

Half-way through Apple’s fiscal year, sales in the business segment comprised of AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats headphones, HomePod, iPod touch and a shelfful of accessories is up 37%

From Statista‘s Felix Richter, who takes the music angle:

Having always taken pride in its love of music, Apple is reportedly planning to further extend its line of audio products in the future. According to a Bloomberg article citing people “familiar with the matter” the Cupertino-based company is planning to release a high-end version of the popular AirPods, another HomePod and its first pair of Apple-branded over-ear headphones as early as next year.

Considering that Apple’s main source of revenue, its iPhone business, isn’t growing as quickly as it used to and the Mac and iPad segments have also cooled off recently, it makes sense for Apple to build another leg to stand on. Starting with the iPod in the early 2000s, Apple has a history of highly successful audio products and its headphones, both the Apple-branded AirPods as well as Beats headphones, are a hit with customers.

As the following chart illustrates, the “Other Products” segment that sums up all of Apple’s audio products along with Apple TV, Apple Watch and other accessories accounted for nearly $10 billion in revenue in the first half of the company’s ongoing fiscal year, up from $4.4 billion just three years ago.

Click to enlarge.

My take: Still no hard sales numbers from Apple for any of the Other Products. But at some point, when billions are involved, even a misfit can become material to the bottom line. I’ve got my money on Apple Watch.