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Earnings per share came in at US$2.84, comfortably ahead of the US$2.67 consensus.Kathy Willens/The Associated Press
Apple AAPL-Q beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, powered by strong demand for its iPhones and a sharp rebound in China, with CEO Tim Cook telling Reuters that demand for the latest handsets was “staggering.”
Apple’s iPhone 17 lineup helped lift sales across key markets, easing investor concerns about a hardware sales plateau. The devices have been well received for their upgraded camera features and performance improvements, with Apple also benefiting from a wave of upgrades from users holding onto older models.
Apple shares were up 2.8 per cent in extended trading after the results were released.
IPhone revenue rose to US$85.27-billion in the fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 27, well above the US$78.65-billion analysts had expected. Apple said iPhone sales set records in every geographic segment, highlighting broad-based demand despite macroeconomic uncertainty.
“The demand for iPhone was simply staggering, with revenue growing 23 per cent year over year to achieve its biggest quarter in history,” Cook told Reuters in an interview.
The iPhone maker posted quarterly revenue of US$143.8-billion, up 16 per cent from a year earlier, topping analysts’ average estimate of US$138.48-billion, according to LSEG. Cook said that the company now has an installed base of 2.5 billion devices.
Earnings per share came in at US$2.84, comfortably ahead of the US$2.67 consensus.
Apple reported fiscal first-quarter gross margins of 48.2 per cent, above both its own guidance and analyst expectations of 47.45 per cent, according to LSEG data. The result suggests that rising costs for DRAM memory chips and commodities such as gold have not yet shown up in Apple’s results.
In the interview, Cook declined to comment on memory prices, saying the topic would be addressed on the company’s quarterly conference call with analysts. Earlier this month, Apple announced its partnership with Alphabet’s Google, which integrates the Gemini artificial-intelligence models into Apple’s ecosystem, as part of its broader push to bolster AI features.
Sales in Greater China jumped 38 per cent year-on-year to US$25.53-billion, far exceeding the Visible Alpha estimate of US$21.32-billion. Apple has faced pressure in China from local rivals and regulatory scrutiny, but Cook said that the iPhone hit a sales record there and that the iPhone 17 drove double-digit growth in the number of users switching from Android devices.
Apple does not disclose sales figures for India, a key growth market, but Cook told Reuters that the company saw “double-digit” sales growth, with revenue records for iPhones, Macs and other products. He also said Apple plans to open a store in Mumbai.
One notable miss compared with Wall Street expectations came in Apple’s wearables, home and accessories segment, where sales were US$11.49-billion, missing expectations of US$12.04-billion. Apple last year released a product called AirPods Pro 3 that can translate between languages, and Cook said that demand for the new product caught Apple off guard.
“AirPods Pro 3 were supply-constrained during the quarter, and we think we would have grown year over year if we would not have been constrained,” Cook said.
Mac revenue came in at US$8.39-billion, slightly below analysts’ expectations of US$8.95-billion.
IPad sales rose to US$8.6-billion, beating estimates of US$8.13-billion, helped by steady education demand and continued traction for higher-priced iPad Pro models.
Revenue from the services segment, which includes Apple Music, iCloud and other software, climbed to a record US$30.01-billion, broadly in line with analysts’ expectations of US$30.07-billion.
