Yesterday Apple forecast revenue of $37–40 billion for the September quarter. That compares to their record revenue of 37.4 billion in the just-ended June quarter. The forecast was lower than many analysts were expecting. And since everyone is expecting Apple to sell a huge number of iPhone 6 units when it launches, that forecast suggests the iPhone 6 will arrive no sooner than late September. The betting right now is on September 26 as the launch date. That would still be in September, thereby boosting revenues the last few days of the month, but not early enough to push anticipated revenue over $40 billion.
Overall, it was a good quarter for Apple, even though iPhone sales and total revenue were slightly below Wall Street's expectations. Apple sold 35.2 million iPhones compared to 31.2 million in the June quarter a year ago. Mac sales were up, though, with Apple selling 4.4 million compared to 3.8 million a year ago. iPad sales continued to decline year-over-year for the second quarter in a row. Apple sold 13.28 million compared to 14.6 million a year ago.
Profit margins were up, however, and exceeded Wall Street's expectations. Apple ended the quarter with $164.5 billion in cash.
In the conference call afterward, CEO Tim Cook and new CFO Luca Maestri gave some additional interesting details about Apple's earnings. You can see a good summary of the highlights on AppleInsider. iPhone sales were up over 50 percent in Brazil, India, China, and Russia. Those are markets, unlike the saturated US market, where there's still room for growth. Also, Apple is selling a lot of iPads in the education market: 2.5 iPads for every Mac sold. Education sales and sales in China spurred the uptick in Mac sales during the quarter, with sales in China being 39 percent higher than a year ago.
Apple's stock is higher today, so overall investors must have liked Apple's report.
