Apple Shares Rise On Earnings Beat
Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) third fiscal quarter earnings sends shares up by more than 6% during the after-hours trading. Company delivers high iPhone sales despite market anticipation on the release of the tenth anniversary iPhone next month.
Earnings Result
For its quarterly earnings report, the company posted an earnings of $1.67 per share versus analyst forecasts of $1.57 per share. Apple’s earnings per share during the same period last year stood at around $1.42 per share.
Apple’s revenue was also up by 7% year over year coming in at $45.5 billion beating consensus analyst estimates of $44.89 billion
Last May, the company’s revenue from its services sector rose by 18% from the previous year bringing in around $7 billion for the company due to the robust performance of the company’s services such as Apple’s App Store, Apple Music, and Apple Pay. For this quarter, the company’s revenue from its services business rose by 21.6% to $7.27 billion.
Apple’s fiscal second quarter earnings report also revealed that the company was able to sell more than 50 million iPhone units which was higher due to the rising demand for the iPhone 7 Plus. For this quarter, most analysts expected a slight decline in the company’s iPhone sales due to the anticipation of the tenth anniversary iPhone release next month.
However, the company was still able to sell around 41 million iPhone units this quarter beating most forecasts of 40.7 million iPhone units. According to the company during their earnings call, the demand for their iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus remains positively strong which attributes to their sales for this quarter.
Apple’s iPad sales also rose during the third fiscal quarter for the first time since 2014 where iPad sales began to slump. For the quarter, the company was able to sell around 11.4 million iPad units compared to their sales of 9.05 million iPads during the same quarter last year.
Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook commented on their iPad sales stating that the latest version starts at a selling price of $329 attributing to its appeal on people who wishes to spend less on a tablet device. According to Cook, iPad sales are up by 15% year on year.
Apple’s shares rallied by 6% at $159.16 during the after-hours trading following a bright outlook seen during its third fiscal quarter earnings report. For the coming quarter, the company has forecasted their revenue to range at around $49 billion to $52 billion.