Apple on Tuesday announced its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2017. The iPhone maker earned $45.4 billion in revenue, net quarterly profit of $8.7 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share. That compares to revenue of $42.4 billion and net quarterly profit of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share, in the same quarter a year ago.
The strong results were driven by strong iPhone sales, as well as pleasantly surprising growth in its iPad and Mac businesses. iPhone sales for the period were 41 million, up from 40.4 million the year before.
iPad sales were also strong, reaching 11.4 million units in the quarter. Sales were aided by the three new iPad models launched in 2017, which includes two new iPad Pros in the June quarter.
As for the Mac, sales were 4.3 million, up just a bit from the same period in 2016.
“With revenue up 7 percent year-over-year, we’re happy to report our third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth and an all-time quarterly record for Services revenue,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We hosted an incredibly successful Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and we’re very excited about the advances in iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS coming this fall.”
“We reported unit and revenue growth in all our product categories in the June quarter, driving 17 percent growth in earnings per share,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We also returned $11.7 billion to investors during the quarter, bringing cumulative capital returns under our program to almost $223 billion.”
Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.63 per share of the Company’s common stock. The dividend is payable on August 17, 2017 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 14, 2017.
Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2017 fourth quarter:
- Revenue between $49 billion and $52 billion
- Gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38 percent
- Operating expenses between $6.7 billion and $6.8 billion
- Other income/(expense) of $500 million
- Tax rate of 25.5 percent
