Riding on services, Apple set to reinvent the iPhone

San Jose (California): Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything, said late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once.

In his keynote address at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in 2007 as he unveiled the first iPhone, Jobs told the audience: "This is a day that I have been looking forward to for two and a half years and today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone".

A lot has changed in nearly 12 years since Apple introduced the iPhone which has seen an installed base of nearly a billion devices across the globe.

Even Jobs could not have predicted just how popular iPhone would become in years to come.

According to CEO Tim Cook, Apple's active installed base of iPhones continued to grow across the globe in its June quarter, including in India where the company has achieved double-digit growth after a long time owing to promotional offers and discounts.

According to a latest consumer survey by New York-based 451 Research, among business buyers who plan to purchase smartphones in the September quarter, 83 per cent plan to purchase iPhones.

In the June quarter, Apple has a new revenue record of $53.8 billion and iPhone generated $26 billion, riding on strong customer response to the company's in-store trade-in and financing programmes.

"Our active installed base of iPhone reached a new all-time high and was up year-over-year in each of our top 20 markets, underscoring the quality of our products and the satisfaction and loyalty of iPhone customers around the world," Cook told the analysts over call.

As smartphone competition turns hyper-local, Cook has to reinvent the iPhone and this time, he has growing services business on his side which, if bundled well with the new models of iPhones, can do magic.

With services, Apple generated all-time record revenue of $11.5 billion - 13 per cent growth (year-over-year).

"Our strong services performance was broad-based; we set new all-time records for AppleCare, music, cloud services and our app store search ad business and achieved a new third quarter revenue record for the App Store," said Cook.

Apple has surpassed 420 million paid subscriptions to services across its platform.

According to Cook, the success is driven by several factors.

"Apple Pay is now completing nearly 1 billion transactions per month more than twice the volume of a year ago. Apple Pay launched in 17 countries in the June quarter completing our coverage in the European Union and bringing us to a total of 47 markets currently," he told the analysts.

For iPhone users, iOS 13 will take on a dramatic new look with Dark Mode, while delivering major updates to the apps, including photos, camera and maps.

iOS 13 offers great new ways to help you manage your privacy and security, including Sign On with Apple, which uses Face ID or Touch ID to quickly sign into apps and Web sites without sharing your personal information.

To introduce yet another great iPhone, Cook needs to ensure improvements across the entire system that will make iPhone faster and more delightful to use than ever before.

With smartphones becoming everything else but a talking device, the next generation of iPhones has to drive users into a new era of productivity and entertainment—not a difficult job for Apple veteran Cook as he prepares for the launch at the company's Cupertino-based headquarters on Tuesday.