Mobile may be Apple’s bread and butter in many ways today, but it doesn’t represent the aspect of its business that is actually growing the fastest on the hardware front.
Surprisingly – okay, shockingly – Apple’s fastest growing product isn’t an iDevice or even a Mac. According to market analyst and Apple watcher Horace Dediu of Asymco, the Apple TV was Apple’s fastest growing hardware product of 2013.
The analyst projects that the Apple TV brought in close to or just over $1 billion in revenue last year.
“Apple TV is the fastest growing hardware product in Apple’s line-up. My estimate is 80% y/y,” Dediu tweeted Friday.
Even though the hardware hasn’t been updated in almost two years, Apple still managed to sell a whopping ten million units in 2013, Dediu estimates.
But the long-awaited hardware update for Apple TV may be coming soon. Just last week, in fact, Apple began offering its Apple TV with a $25 iTunes gift card, a rare product promotion that may indicate Apple is looking to clear out old inventory to make room for the refreshed next-gen Apple TV.
