This compared to a profit of $18 billion with revenue of $74.6 billion made for the same period one year ago.
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Technology giant Apple announced Tuesday that its first quarter revenue increased to record levels, despite slowing sales of its flagship iPhone devices.
Apple boss Tim Cook credited “all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV” for the performance.
The “other products” segment, which includes the Apple Watch and Apple TV, had revenues of $4.4 billion.
For the quarter that ended December 26, Apple said it sold 74.8 million iPhones, essentially flat from the 74.5 million sold a year ago.
The iPad continued to struggle, with unit sales of 16.122 million on revenue of $7.084 billion (£4.95 billion) – falling 25 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.
It’s a trend that’s repeated from last year’s $18 billion record profit from the last three months of 2014.
“Cook & Co have a few tough quarters ahead until we get to the buildup around iPhone 7 later this year, which is what bulls are focused on to turn this ship back into growth waters”, FBR & Co analyst Daniel Ives said.
For the first time since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, Apple’s year-over-year growth of iPhone sales has slowed.
Despite all of the above, in a research report sent to clients analysts at Morgan Stanley said “we are positively biased given better than feared March guidance, a growing user base, accelerating Services revenue and new iPhones later this year”. The Cupertino company still makes a boatload of money (it’s quarterly revenue record this time around: $75.9 billion), and now sees one billion active Apple devices across the globe. Apple is predicting revenues of $50-53bn, below its Q2 2015 revenues of $58bn – the first year-on-year drop in revenues recorded by the company for 13 years.
Apple kicked off its new fiscal year with slightly higher sales and profits despite what management termed as a “very hard macroeconomic environment”.
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Apple is facing problems in its other products as well. “We have now completed 153 billion U.S. dollars of our 200 billion United States dollar capital return programme”. Apple is banking on a push into the business market to help revive the tablet market it did so much to create.
