For accounting, Apple’s fiscal calendar uses a week-based year with custom months and quarters. This schedule is also used to pay out royalties from iTunes and App Store sales, for instance, so affects people outside the company.
- Weeks start on Sunday and end on Saturday, as is common in the US.
- The year is divided into four quarters.
- The first quarter, Q1, starts at the last Sunday of September.
- Each quarter is divided into three months.
- Each month has a whole number of weeks: five weeks in the first, four weeks in the other two (5:4:4).
- Therefore, each quarter has exactly 13 weeks.
- At the end of the calendar year, i.e. at the end of the first fiscal quarter, an extra week is added every five to six years.
- This makes the quarter that contains Christmas longer (14 weeks) sometimes, which complicates year-to-year and quarter-to-quarter comparisons.
External links[]
- Apple: Payment and financial reports basics
- Apple’s fiscal calendar – only accessible with iTunes Connect account
- App Figures article