Apple records whopping quarterly profit of $18.4 billion

Apple is forecasting revenue of between $US50 billion and $US53 billion for the March quarter, which would be the first quarterly drop since 2003 according to Bloomberg, and below analysts’ forecasts for $US55.5 billion.

Of course, Apple remains extremely profitable as a company, having generated $18.4 billion in net income on sales of $75.9 billion, on par with the company’s projected $76 billion sales for its December quarter. Granted, Apple has shipped far more than a billion devices in the past; the company sold its billionth iOS device back in November 2014.

That’s a mixed bag: a hit on earnings, but a miss on revenue.

Apple also sold more iPhones than it ever has in a single quarter, shifting 74.8m iPhones during the three months encapsulating the release of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Apple said it recently passed the milestone of an installed base of 1 billion devices accessing its services, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TV, iPod touch and Apple Watch. Reveue for the quarter came in at a cool $75.9bn, up from $74.6bn in the year-ago quarter.

The stock price of Apple declined more than 2% to $97.84 per share during the extended trading around 5:24 in the afternoon in NY. But Apple’s forecast, which calls for revenue between $50 billion and $53 billion in the current period, means the company will likely fall short of the $58 billion it had a year earlier.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of $2.23 a share on revenue of $55.6 billion. A year ago, still an increase of 46 percent the company was managed. That’s the number of iPhones that Apple sold previous year in the same period.

That’s according to financial results from the company’s first fiscal quarter, which ended December 26. That could fuel another surge in sales.

Sales for the iPad fell, with 16.1 million units versus 21.4 million in the same period in the prior year.

Apple suppliers have been cutting production of iPhone components left and right, citing weaker demand. Apple is such a large firm that its performance has an impact on numerous other major companies. The forex factor sliced about $5b off the company’s revenue, Maestri said.

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