Apple Reports Record Financial Results: $88B Revenue, $20B Profit

Apple profits have risen despite the fact that the company sold less iPhones than it previously expected in the final months of 2017, according to reports.

During the last three months of 2017, iPhone sales dipped slightly when compared to 2016 numbers, but the tech giant made $20 billion in profit.

It’s believed that higher prices resulted in this profit growth. As well as this, Apple achieved strong growth numbers throughout Europe and Asia.

During the period, Apple shipped 77.3 million iPhones, which is a decrease of 1 percent compared to 2016. Shares in the company slipped initially too, but they grew by 3 percent after the announcement.

Overall, the company has posted “record” revenue of $88.3 billion, increasing by 13 percent from a year ago. Apple said international sales made up 65 percent of this number.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, praised his company’s financial performance. “We’re thrilled to report the biggest quarter in Apple’s history, with broad-based growth that included the highest revenue ever from a new iPhone lineup,” he said.

Despite slightly disappointing iPhone sales, Cook said the iPhone X “surpassed our expectations and has been our top-selling iPhone every week since it shipped in November.”

He added: “We’ve also achieved a significant milestone with our active installed base of devices reaching 1.3 billion in January. That’s an increase of 30 percent in just two years, which is a testament to the popularity of our products and the loyalty and satisfaction of our customers.”

Luca Maestri, chief financial officer of Apple, attributed these profits to “great operational and business performance”. He said: “We achieved all-time record profitability during the quarter, with EPS up 16 percent.

“Cash flow from operations was very strong at $28.3 billion, and we returned $14.5 billion to investors through our capital return program.”
The news comes as multiple analysts have downgraded Apple shares. As CNBC reported last week, Atlantic Equities downgraded  shares to neutral from overweight.

James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic, said he’s seeing “signs that iPhone demand is starting to soften, limited visibility into the potential for future iPhone cycles and emerging challenges to the smartphone’s dominance at the centre of consumer technology.”

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