Apple closed the fourth fiscal quarter with record profits and turnover, while it says it expects a very profitable Christmas season for iPhone sales, despite the numbers for the quarter just ended disappointing expectations. The shares of the US smartphone giant, however, jumped by 4% in the after hours session of the American market, demonstrating that the market welcomed the quarterly report positively.
Profits and turnover growth in the quarter
Apple closed the fourth quarter with a net profit of $27.47 billion, nearly doubled from $14.74 billion a year earlier.
EPS stood at $1.85 per share, which compares with $0.97 for the fourth quarter of 2024, impacted by a large tax burden due to the settlement of a dispute over unpaid taxes with the EU. Net of this extraordinary component, Apple recorded a 13% growth in profit.
Revenues stood at a record $102.47 billion, up 8% from $94.93 billion in the same period of 2024. This slightly beat consensus estimates of $102.2 billion.
The tariffs resulted in $1.1 billion in expenses during the quarter, in line with Apple’s expectations of $1.4 billion in tariff costs in the first quarter.
Apple sees a very positive first quarter for the iPhone
Apple says it expects a double-digit increase in sales during the holiday season, thanks to the launch of the new iPhones, and expects revenue growth of 10-12% for the fiscal first quarter. Analysts had expected growth of 6% on average.
“We expect iPhone revenue to grow double-digits year over year, which would represent our best quarter ever for iPhone”
said Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh.
The growth engines remain services and Mac
The Cupertino-based company benefited from better-than-expected growth as Services remained Apple’s fastest-growing segment last quarter, with revenue rising 15% to $28.8 billion.
iPhone revenues increased by 6.1% to $49 billion in the September period, having benefited for just two weeks from the launch of the new iPhone 17, and slightly disappointed expectations which indicated sales of $49.3 billion.
Mac revenues increased by 13% to 8.73 billion dollars, exceeding analysts’ forecasts which indicated an average turnover of 8.6 billion dollars, while iPad revenues were stable at 6.95 billion dollars and those of Wearables, Home and Accessories dropped very slightly to around 9 billion dollars.
Strong Mac sales helped offset a slowing business in China, which saw revenue fall 3.6% to $14.5 billion, below the $16.4 billion expected by analysts.
