The gift that keeps giving - Apple shipped almost 48m iPhone smartphones during its fiscal Q1
Reports of Apple’s innovation demise have been greatly exaggerated – the California tech company reported revenues of US$54.5bn for its fiscal Q1 and profits of US$13.1bn. To put that in perspective, Google breached the US$50bn mark for the entire year for the first time in its history in 2012.
The rumour mill was in overdrive during the last quarter, citing Apple’s apparent decision to cut orders on displays.
This rumour has been put to bed by the revelation that the technology giant sold 47.8m iPhones in the quarter, compared with 37m iPhones a year earlier.
Apple sold 22.9m iPad tablet computers during the first quarter, compared with 15.4m a year earlier.
“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over US$54bn and sales of over 75m iOS devices in a single quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”
During the quarter, Apple sold 4.1m Mac computers, down from 5.2m Macs the previous year.
iPods, which had been declining, are incidentally up to 12.7m devices sold in Q1, compared with 15.4m in the corresponding quarter the year before.
Apple generated US$23bn worth of cash flow in Q1
Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of US$2.65 per share of the company’s common stock.
Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2013, Apple is predicting revenues of between US$41bn and US$43bn. While on first glance this is down on Q1 of 2013 (which is the Christmas sales season), it nevertheless is an increase on last year’s Q2 revenues of US$39.2bn.
“We’re pleased to have generated over US$23bn in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.
“We established new all-time quarterly records for iPhone and iPad sales, significantly broadened our ecosystem, and generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever.”
