Apple's financial results for its fiscal 2017 third quarter ended July 1, 2017 showed that the company posted quarterly revenue of $45.4 billion, up 7% from revenue of $42.4 billion in the year-ago quarter and international sales accounted for 61 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

However, it's noticed that despite the robust financial results, Apple's Q3 revenue in Greater China region amounted to $8 billion. The result compares to $10.7 billion in Q2 and $8.8 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Besides, the previous smash hit iPad is sliding into "stock clearance promotion", with sales volume climbing 14.8% year on year to 11.4 million yet sales income only up 1.7%. The average price of iPad reduced to $329.

In fact, Apple has adjusted its strategies in China. One of the major moves is to raise the service price within its ecosystem. However, Apple's decision to take 30% of every in-app transaction didn't yield positive outcomes as Apple expected. For example, following failed attempts to reach a compromise with Apple, WeChat disabled its tipping function for iPhone users.

It's also noted that China was the only region where Apple’s revenue fell for Q3. In the meantime, China's mobile phone enterprises seized the opportunities to expand.

According to the top selling mobile phones in China for 2017 Q2 released by Counterpoint, Samsung's market share dropped to 3% from 7%, whereas China's domestic brands including Huawei, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi achieved growth in varying degrees. But instead of gaining the market share that Samsung lost, Apple's market share fell slightly from 8.5% to 8.2%.

The financial results for Q3 display Apple's strong sales capability, yet also revealed that the sales don't grow alongside with its revenue. Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that software innovation will become the focus for the second half of this year and he was excited about the new features in iOS, macOS.

"With revenue up 7 percent year-over-year, we’re happy to report our third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth and an all-time quarterly record for Services revenue,” said Tim Cook. “We hosted an incredibly successful Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and we’re very excited about the advances in iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS coming this fall.

Lao Tie is a financial columnist.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn