Apple records its biggest and most profitable quarter ever

Apple is bracing for its first sales decline in 13 years, despite selling a record 74.8 million iPhones in the final three months of 2015, in what may prove to be a turning point for the world’s most valuable company.

For the quarter, Apple reported an all-time quarterly record of $18.4 billion in profit on revenue of $75.9 billion.

The company announced that it sold 74.8 million iPhones worldwide during the period, a 0.4 percent rise from shipments a year ago but the slowest growth rate since the first iPhone was released in 2007.

Despite, the efforts of the company’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook to expand in China and broaden its offering range by launching new services and products like Apple Watch, its extreme reliance on iPhone exposes it to the threat of any slowdown in its demand.

In addition, iPad tablet sales declined 21 percent to 16.1 million compared to the previous year, while Mac laptop sales decreased 3 percent to 5.3 million.

Starting at 2 p.m. PDT, Apple will hold a financial results conference call for analysts.

The iPhone did at least manage some nominal growth, but other Apple products fared less well.

“Cook & Co have a few tough quarters ahead until we get to the buildup around iPhone 7 later this year, which is what bulls are focussed on to turn this ship back into growth waters”, FBR & Co analyst Daniel Ives said. Services accounted for $6 billion.

So, now that the dust is settling following the initial reaction to Apple’s quarterly results and outlook, the question of “what’s next?” is facing Cook and Co., Apple customers and those investors, who have seen Apple’s stock price fall by nearly 29 percent since the shares reached a 52-week-high of $134.54 last April. Sixty-six percent of sales were from outside the United States. Greater China brought in $18.37 billion in revenue, while Japan brought in $4.79 billion. That’s a very slight increase – essentially a flatline – which is leading some analysts to claim the end of the iPhone growth era.

The company also said that the revenue for its next quarter is expected to be between $50bn and $53bn, both of which lie below the $58bn figure reported in Q2 2015.