On the day that their new iPhone X goes on sale in Australia Apple has delivered Q4 sales that were above expectations, revenue topped estimates and unit sales across their product range rose.
Despite analyst’s concerns Apple sold just as many iPhones as Wall Street expected, but made more money on the phones it sold.
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $52.6 billion, an increase of 12 percent from the year-ago quarter, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $2.07, up 24 percent. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
“We’re happy to report a very strong finish to a great fiscal 2017, with record fourth quarter revenue, year-over-year growth for all our product categories, and our best quarter ever for Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“With fantastic new products including iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, and Apple TV 4K joining our product lineup, we’re looking forward to a great holiday season, and with the launch of iPhone X getting underway right now, we couldn’t be more excited as we begin to deliver our vision for the future with this stunning device.”
Q4 iPhone unit sales: 46.7 million vs. 46 million expected by a FactSet consensus estimate.
sales came in at $52.6 billion analysts had expected around $50.74 billion.
iPhone revenue: $28.85 billion
iPhone unit sales: 46.7 million
iPad revenue: $4.83 billion
iPad unit sales: 10.3 million
Other Products revenue: (Apple TV, Beats headphones, Apple Watch): $3.23 billion
Greater China revenue: $9.8 billion
Services revenue: $8.5 billion
Mac revenue: $7.17 billion
Mac unit sales: 5.39 million
Apple is expecting gross margin of between 38% and 38.5%.
Apple said services and their App Store, iTunes, Apple Pay, iCloud and more—generated more than $27.8 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended July 1.
Mac computers were up 25% and to $7.17 billion, in what looks like the best year ever for the product line.
Going forward Apple has forecast holiday sales that exceeded most analyst estimates, a sign it expects robust demand for the new iPhone X, the company’s most important product launch in years.
The 10-year anniversary iPhone will help push sales to a record high of $84 billion to $87 billion in the quarter ending in late December, Apple said in a statement.
Analysts predicted revenue of $84 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The previous record was $78 billion during the holiday quarter of 2016.
Summary:
revenue between $84 billion and $87 billion
gross margin between 38 percent and 38.5 percent
operating expenses between $7.65 billion and $7.75 billion
other income/(expense) of $600 million
tax rate of 25.5 percent
Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.63 per share of the Company’s common stock. The dividend is payable on November 16, 2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on November 13, 2017.
Shares of Apple rallied after hours Thursday but that’s not stopping analysts from hitting the sell button on the stock.
Despite Apple’s 45 percent surge this year and high demand for the iPhone X, Larry McDonald, head of U.S. macro strategies at ACG Analytics, still believes the stock had already gone too far, too fast ahead of the latest earnings report.
“You’re talking about a company with a market capitalization of $865 billion that’s trading close to 15 percent above its 200-day moving average,” he said Thursday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” “That is something you don’t just want to walk away from, [you want to run away]. It’s a screaming sell.”
The stock soared past $173 almost immediately after the company released earnings.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have outsold other models since shipping in September but added that he has never expected sales to exceed initial sales of last year’s iPhone 7 and 7 Plus because it is releasing three phones this year. He said that Apple had earlier planned to release the iPhone X even later than Nov. 2, but decided to “be very bold and do it sooner.” He declined to offer specifics.
“The ramp, especially considering how advanced the product is, is going well,” Mr. Cook said in an interview. “Obviously, if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be able to guide” for record revenue for the current quarter.
More to follow…..
