The company also said that the revenue for its next quarter is expected to be between $50bn and $53bn, both of which lie below the $58bn figure reported in Q2 2015.
Advertisement
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, in a statement explained that Apple’s services business and its growth lead to the acceleration for the quarter which produced record results.
Apple forecast second-quarter revenue of $50 billion to $53 billion, below analysts’ average forecast of $55.5 billion. It generated a whopping fourth-quarter profit of $18.4 billion, a 2 percent increase from a year earlier, and a staggering $216 billion in cash.
“Our record sales and strong margins drove all-time records for net income and EPS in spite of a very hard macroeconomic environment”, said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO.
In its first quarter of this year, Apple sold 74.8 million iPhones – a new record – compared with 74.47 million over the same period last year.
Some analysts recently predicted a hard year ahead for the company as growth in the overall smartphone market slows, particularly at the high end.
Cook said that this year brought a record number of conversions from Android, which doubtless was a large number – considering Android had 1.4 billion active devices in fall of 2015, and certainly more now.
Apple is projecting revenue in the second quarter to be between $50b (£34b, €46b), which is below the $58b it reported in the same period a year ago.
The highlight of the quarter was the iPhone, with Apple reporting 74.8 million iPhones sold.
It comes after years of rocketing growth for the market-leading iPhone, which drives two-thirds of Apple’s revenue. That could fuel another surge in sales.
Moreover, Apple’s forecast for its revenues is also not encouraging which is expected to decline for the first time in 13 years on the year-to-year basis. There are 60 per cent people who had an iPhone prior to the launch of iPhone 6 and may upgraded to the latest launch.
But they added that Apple was lacking an obvious new product to replace the exponential growth it has seen from the iPhone, despite introducing watches and reports about developing a vehicle.
Advertisement
Technology giant Apple on Tuesday announced a slowdown in the sale of its top-selling product, the iPhone. But sales grew by only 1.7 percent, the lowest in 10 consecutive quarters and the worst holiday period on record.
