New iPhones deliver big profits

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― New big-screen iPhones helped propel Apple’s profit and revenue in the last quarter, as the California tech giant smashed earnings expectations.

The company reported on Monday that profit rose 13 percent to $8.5 billion, as revenues jumped to $42.1 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ending Sept. 27.

Apple said it sold more than 39 million iPhones in the quarter, boosted by last month’s launch of the large-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which hit some markets on Sept. 19. That compared with 33.8 million in the same period a year ago.

The iPhone accounted for more than $23 billion in revenue, over half of Apple’s overall earnings for the quarter.

Sales of iPads ― which may have been lower ahead of the October launch of new models ― fell from a year earlier to 12.3 million, producing some $5.3 billion in revenues.

“I view it as a speed bump, not a huge issue,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said of the decline in iPad sales during a conference call with analysts.

“I know there is a popular view the (tablet) market is saturated, we don’t see that.”

As appetites for tablet have diminished, Apple’s market share has slipped to 25 percent, compared to 70 percent for the rival Android platform, according to Strategy Analytics.

People are holding onto iPads longer than they do iPhones, and Apple is still researching when consumers typically upgrade to new tablets, according to Cook.

He saw some promising developments for iPad sales, including a recent alliance with IBM to improve tablet capabilities for businesses.

“I am very bullish on where we can take iPad over time,” Cook said.

Growing Mac sales came as the overall personal computer market shrank.

“On the Mac, it was just an absolutely blow-away quarter,” Cook said. “The back-to-school season voted, and the Mac won.”

The financial results were the best ever for a September quarter, and the fiscal year that just ended “was one for the record books,” Cook said earlier in a statement.

Apple, the world’s biggest firm by market value, closed its fiscal year with a profit of $39.5 billion on revenues of nearly $183 billion.

Trip Chowdhry at Global Equities Research said Apple’s quarterly report “handsomely beats (expectations) on both top line and bottom line.

“These results validate our investment thesis Apple is a multi-year, multi-product, multi-service and multi-geography growth company.”

Apple shares rose 1.47 percent to $101.23 in after-hours trading following the results.

“Apple continues to hit it out of the park,” independent analyst Jeff Kagan said.

“Apple was showing strong growth, year after year, until a couple years ago. That’s when they fell and that lasted for a while. However, Apple now appears to be back.”