Apple today announced its earnings for the third quarter of its financial year and revealed that it had made profits of $6.9 billion on a total revenue of $35.3 billion. Although this marks a sharp 21.6% decline in profits, as compared to the same quarter last year, the numbers were still higher than what financial analysts expected and as a result, Apple’s shares rose by almost 5%. One of the big reasons for the better than expected profits and revenue is the fact that Apple sold 31.2 million iPhones this quarter, the highest number of units it has ever sold in the June quarter any year, an upswing from the 26 million it sold in last year’s corresponding quarter.
Even though the iPhone sales gave Apple’s fortunes a boost, its other products did not see similar positives. iPad sales dropped to 14.6 million from 17 million last year, about 270,000 fewer Macs were sold this year and iPod sales also fell to 4.57 million from 6.7 million units last year. However, Apple saw greater revenues of $3.99 billion from iTunes this year, as compared to $3.2 billion last year.
In spite of the mixed results, the mood seemed optimistic. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that new products were in the pipeline. He said, “We are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014.” Some analysts also admitted Apple had performed better this quarter than expected. The BBC quoted Sharon Cross of Cross Research Group, “The iPhone number should provide some comfort to investors who were worried about smartphone demand. That’s one of the reasons the stock is up. Expectations were not strong for this quarter.”
However, Adam Sarhan CEO of Sarhan Capital had some sobering advice for Apple, which the company will hopefully heed. Sarhan said to the BBC, “Until it (Apple) delivers a new, innovative product that really adds to both top and bottom-line, I would expect the stock to continue treading water.”