A man holds an Apple iPhone5S as he uses Apple Music app on October 11, 2017 in Hong Kong, Hong Kong.S3studio | Getty ImagesApple’s third-quarter earnings report on Thursday showed a revenue decline in the company’s most iconic hardware products — iPhone, iPad and Mac. The current period could also be rough.But offsetting the hardware softness is accelerating growth in services, Apple’s most profitable business. That’s the division that includes subscriptions, warranties, licensing fees, and Apple Pay. In the June quarter, services grew over 8% to $21.2 billion in sales, speeding up from 5.5% the prior period. In the fiscal fourth quarter, the unit will grow even faster, Apple said.related investing news The division’s growth was “better than we expected,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors on Thursday. Apple’s services business is critical for shareholders because it has stronger margins than hardware products, is more predictable because of recurring billing, and provides more ways for the company to make money from its installed base of over 2 billion devices. Gross margin for services in the June quarter was 70.5%, almost double the 35.4% margin for all of Apple’s hardware products.”It goes from the fact that our install base continues to grow, so we got a larger pool of customers, to the fact that o …
