Apple ( AAPL) revealed its first-quarter earnings following the bell on Thursday. It beat analysts’ expectations for the bottom and top figures on a higher-than-expected increase in iPhone sales.
In the last quarter, Apple saw earnings per share of $2.18 on revenues in the range of $119.6 billion. Analysts had forecast earnings of $2.11 for revenue in the range of $117.9 billion.
Apple’s shares Apple dropped by more than 1% after the news.
In the first quarter, Apple reported iPhone sales of $69.7 billion, which was higher than the forecasts that were $68.6 billion. However, sales from China as the company’s third-largest market following North American and Europe, were lower than the forecast with a total of $20.8 billion. Wall Street was looking for the figure to be $23.5 billion.
Apple is battling an slow Chinese economy, as well as the resurgence of Huawei in China that has affected sales across the region. However, strong performances across the two regions of North American as well as Europe have helped the company.
“Today Apple is reporting revenue increase for the quarter ending December driven by iPhone sales, as well as an all-time record for revenue in Services,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
“We are delighted to declare that our base of installed devices that is active has reached 2.2 billion, which is an all-time record across all products and geographical segments.
Apple’s Mac revenues topped $7.8 billion during the first quarter, not quite meeting the expectations of analysts for $7.9 billion. Apple’s iPad revenue was also down at $7 billion. Wall Street was looking for $7.1 billion. This is a significant reduction of the $9.4 billion that the iPad business brought in last year.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple will introduce new Macs as well as iPads in March. Macs in March. This could boost sales in both the business and consumer segments over the coming year.
Wearables, home and accessories raked 12 billion in revenue, which is higher than the estimates. Apple has been battling with a pending dispute over patents with the medical device maker Masimo that caused the company to temporarily pull the device off of retail shelves.
The company has since retracted the component for detecting blood oxygen that caused the issue in the Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches, however it’s not clear what impact it has been on sales.
The Services segment of Apple, in turn it racked up $23.1 billion, just short of the expected $23.4 billion.
Apple’s earnings are reported as the company is preparing for the launch of it’s Vision Pro AR/VR headset. The headset that Apple calls an “spatial computer,” goes on sale on Feb. 2. It will cost $3,499. While it’s an impressive device however, the price will likely hinder sales for the vast majority of people.
Although Apple does not release the exact figures for sales of its devices but it’ll be interesting to find out what kind of remarks the CEO Tim Cook has to offer about the first surge of Vision Pro preorders and how the developer community reacts. If the Vision Pro is to be an success, it’ll require developers to develop applications for it.
