Apple's Quarterly Revenue Results Explained

Apple reported that its Q3 2016 revenue was down to $42B from almost $50B in 2015.  The cascade charts below show that the revenue decrease was mostly due to a decrease in iPhone revenue and due to a decrease in sales in China.  Going back an additional year, you can see that both iPhone sales and sales in China experienced significant increases.

The cascade (waterfall) charts show period over period changes in key measures like revenue or profit.  I showed changes over two periods in each of these charts by adding a second total cascade bar.  I also used a highlight color to call out the key product and region.  I added an axis break to focus the user on the period over period changes rather than the amount of total revenue in each period.  I also added a border to the charts by quitting Mekko Graphics and selecting the charts in PowerPoint.  Here is the chart in SlideShare to download and edit using Mekko Graphics: