Apple announced their quarterly financial results for the first three months of the calendar year this week and once again Apple set records, clearly smashed the analysts’ predictions and continued to blaze new territory for the world’s most valuable company. Apple posted revenue of $58 billion and a net profit for the quarter of $13.6 billion or $2.33 per share. This was 27% better than last year’s $45.6 billion in revenue and $10.6 billion in profit.
Apple’s sales were driven by the iPhone, which accounted for over $40 billion in revenue. They sold over 61 million iPhones and for the first time Apple sold more iPhones in China than in the USA. While the rest of the PC market is in decline, Mac sales also increased year-over-year with over 4.5 million Macs sold, which put Apple in positive territory when virtually all other manufacturers are seeing declining sales.
The iPad was soft, although Apple did sell 12.6 million iPad but that is off from last year by about 29%. Tim Cook said that he feels that the iPad will rebound with the IBM partnership. First time buyers of 40% in the USA and over 70% in China also indicate that the iPad is far from saturated in the market. The App Store and services showed significant growth, however, with nearly $5 billion in revenue.
Apple increased its quarterly dividend to shareholders by 11 cents per share making Apple the largest dividend payer in the S&P 500. They also increased their stock buy-back program to $140 billion in an effort to enhance the return to shareholders from Apple success. Since August of 2012, Apple has returned over $112 billion to shareholders.
ApplePay got a big boost as Best Buy and Discover card announced they will be supporting ApplePay and it looks to me, at least, that Apple is going to win that mobile payment battle, too, and become the de facto payment platform. I know I am finding more and more places that accept ApplePay and it was way, WAY too easy to buy my Apple Watch online with ApplePay!
Tim Cook also revealed some more of the initiatives that Apple is taking to protect the environment including a 40-megawatt solar farm in Sichuan province that will generate far more that the amount of energy used by all of Apple’s offices and retail stores in China. He also announced a partnership with the Conservation Fund to permanently protect more than 36,000 acres of working forest in Maine and North Carolina.
Apple predicted that their next quarter will see revenue in the neighborhood of $47 billion and my guess is that I will have to come up with yet another verb to describe what Apple did to the Street. As Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “And so it’s tough to find something in the numbers not to like.”
Congratulations for an awesome record breaking quarter to Tim Cook and to the whole Apple team!