Apple has had another smashing quarter thanks to its plus sized iPhones which sold like hot cakes and made the record sales for the holiday season with a 70 per cent rise in China sales, powering the company to the largest profit in its corporate history.
The company reported a gross margin of 39.9 per cent, compared to 37.9 per cent in the same quarter last year. Apple reported all-time record revenue from sales of the iPhone and Mac and record App Store performance. The company sold 74.5 million iPhone units during the quarter, also a new record. That was significantly higher than the FactSet consensus estimate of 68 million iPhones. Apple sold 21.4 million iPads and 5.5 million Macs.
Profit of $18 billion was the biggest ever reported by a public company, worldwide, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.
“We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “Our revenue grew 30 per cent over last year to $74.6 billion, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.”
Apple shares closed on Tuesday at $109.14, down 3.5 per cent, but rose over 5 per cent in after-hours trading on the report. The stock has gained more than 50 per cent over the last year, making Apple the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of $651 billion.
Apple was skeptical at first about the plus sized phones but eventually gave in to the market demand and released the new iPhones last September with new iPhone 6, a 4.7 inch phone along with a plus sized iPhone 6 Plus, a 5.5 inch.
Tim Cook also said the Cupertino, California-based company would release its next product, the Apple Watch, in April.