Revenue, earnings slightly beat Wall Street expectations in Q3. Shares hit record high in after-hours trading.
LOS ANGELES — Consumers are apparently waiting until the fall to buy shiny, new iPhones.
Apple had a decent fiscal third-quarter on Tuesday with sales and earnings that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.
Apple announced revenue of $45.4 billion and earnings of $1.67 per share, compared to the year-ago quarter of $42.4 billion and $1.42, respectively.
Analysts had expected revenue of $44.9 billion and earnings of $1.57 for the quarter.
The results sent Apple shares up more than 5% to a record $157.79 in after-hours trading Tuesday.
The June quarter is historically Apple’s slowest. As in most years, sales of the iPhone taper off in the spring and summer, as folks await a new model that debuts each fall. The next iPhone, reportedly sporting a major redesign and packed with new features such as facial recognition, is expected to be introduced in September.
During its third quarter, Apple sold 41 million iPhones and 11.4 million iPads, compared to 40 million iPhones and 9.9 million iPads in the year ago quarter.
The bump is impressive for the iPad, which had been seeing declining sales for the past two years.
Apple also racked up $7.3 billion in its Services division that includes iTunes, Apple Music and the App Store, up 22%. In the year-ago quarter, Apple generated $5.9 billion in Services, so that’s a huge jump for movie rentals, music subscriptions and app downloads.
The Cupertino, Calif., company is now sitting on a pile of $261 billion in cash.
Gene Munster, a Minneapolis-based investor with Loup Ventures, called the fiscal third quarter “a throwaway” with all “attention on the next quarter, and the next iPhones.”
While the sale in this quarter of 41 million iPhones pales compared to the fall quarter’s 78 million, it’s all a sense of perception. For chief rival, a “really good quarter, ” is when it sells 10 million of its Galaxy phones. “Nobody else comes near Apple’s numbers, ” Munster says. “But Apple is held to a different standard.”
Munster predicts Apple will sell 236 million iPhones in its next fiscal year because of pent-up demand in the upgrade cycle, and excitement over Phone 8.
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