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Apple share price reaches record high on quarterly results
Apple’s share price rose 6% in after-hours trading to reach a record high in response to the company’s quarterly financial report
Apple reported revenue of $45.4bn for the quarter ended 1 July 2017, up 7% compared with the same period a year ago, and $8.72bn profit, up 11.9%.
Revenue for the serviced division, which includes the App Store, Apple News and iCloud storage, was a record $7.26bn, an increase of more than 21%.
The news sent the share price up to a record $159 a share, according to The Guardian, adding nearly $40bn to the value of the company to take the total to over $820bn.
“With revenue up 7% year-over-year, we’re happy to report our third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth and an all-time quarterly record for services revenue,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“We hosted an incredibly successful Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and we’re very excited about the advances in iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS coming this fall.”
Apple generates revenue of $24.8bn from sales of more than 41 million iPhones, and £$4.9bn from sales of 11.42 million iPads.
The number of iPhones sold in the quarter was up 2% – while revenue was up 3% compared with the same period a year ago – and the number of iPads sold was up 15% while revenue was up 2%.
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This is the first time iPad sales have grown since 2013, helped by the launch of a new iPad in March and the iPad Pro in June.
“We reported unit and revenue growth in all our product categories in the June quarter, driving 17% growth in earnings per share,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s chief financial officer.
“We also returned $11.7bn to investors during the quarter, bringing cumulative capital returns under our program to almost $223bn.”
Apple expects revenue of between $49bn and $52bn for the current quarter, with the Phone 8 expected in September, and declared a cash dividend of $0.63 per share.
In China, where Apple’s quarterly revenue fell 10% compared with a year ago, Apple was forced to remove some of the main virtual private network (VPN) apps from its Chinese app store.
Apple obligated to remove unlicensed VPNs
In a conference call with investors about Apple’s quarterly earnings, Cook said Apple had no choice but to obey the law and remove all unlicensed VPNs, but said hundreds still remain, reports Gizmodo.
“We would obviously rather not remove the apps, but we follow the law wherever we do business,” he said.
Apple is hopeful the restrictions will be loosened over time, with Cook adding that innovation requires freedom to collaborate and communicate.
Referring to Apple’s 2016 battle with US authorities over iPhone security features, he said the situation was different because US law was on the company’s side, but if US law changed, Apple would have no choice but to comply.
Commenting on the decline in Apple sales in China, Cook said sales in mainland China were fine, ascribing the decline to poor sales in Hong Kong.
