Apple posted quarterly revenue of $53.3 billion (approx. £40 billion) late Tuesday, an increase of 17 percent year-on-year, with the company also returning record services revenues of $9.54 billion, including revenue growth of over 50 percent for Apple Music.
Net income was $11.5 billion, up from $8.7 billion for the same quarter in 2017 and the company spent a whopping $3.7 billion on R&D in the quarter.
Apple teased analysts on a conference call with the suggestion that big things were in the pipeline on the original content front, a month after signing Oprah Winfrey to a multi-year content partnership with the talk show host, as it looks to take on Netflix, Amazon and Youtube in the content segment, but offered scant details.
Strong Apple Earnings Powered by iPhone, Services and Wearables
“We’re thrilled to report Apple’s best June quarter ever, and our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“Our Q3 results were driven by continued strong sales of iPhone, Services and Wearables, and we are very excited about the products and services in our pipeline.”
“Optimistic” on Trade War
On a conference call, Apple executives said dollar headwinds were offset by positive leverage and that memory prices were starting to decline; a welcome tailwind for the company. The company said iPhone revenues were up 20 percent year-on-year for the quarter and that it was bullish on global smartphone growth.
Apple returned the fourth consecutive quarter of double digit growth in greater China and CEO Tim Cook said he hoped “calm heads would prevail” over an escalating trade war between the US and China. He said on a conference call with analysts: “Our view on tariffs is that they show up as a tax on the consumer and wind up in resulting in lower economic growth. We’re optimistic that this will get sorted out. There is inescapable mutuality between US and China. The world needs both to prosper.”
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“Our strong business performance drove revenue growth in each of our geographic segments, net income of $11.5 billion, and operating cash flow of $14.5 billion,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We returned almost $25 billion to investors through our capital return program during the quarter, including $20 billion in share repurchases.”
Apple shipped 13 percent few Macs year-on-year for the quarter however, at just 3.7 million
