 "Apple pulls in $43.6 billion in revenue and $9.5 billion in profit in Q2 2013")
Apple announced their earnings for the quarter gone by. The quarterly earnings of the Cupertino-based gadget maker added up to $43.6 billion and the company also reported $9.5 billion in profits. This news is bound to provide some relief for the company that has seen huge erosion in share value since September 2012, having lost over $280 billion in market-cap since then.
The investor worries, however, persist as Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones this quarter, which is relatively flat as the company had sold 35.1 million phones in the same quarter last year. The Mac sales, which include desktop as well as the Macbook range, were flat as well, with 4 million units sold and iPod sales were down. Revenues were boosted by an increase in iPad sales which at 19.5 million units sold showed a significant increase from 11.8 million units a year ago.
The insanely profitable company has seen its margins come under pressure as sales of lower margin items like the iPad mini registered higher than expected sales. Due to this the company reported a gross margin of 37.5%, a big drop from the 47.4% it reported last year.
What could spook the investors further are the projections that Apple has offered for the next quarter. The company is estimating revenue to drop to between $33.5 billion - $35.5 billion and its gross margins to reduce further. Another drag on the growth is customers opting for devices from Samsung and other makers that run on Google’s Android operating system.
iPhones sell more than any other Apple device
With iPhones accounting for 42% of all revenue and iPads accounting for 16%, many are expecting Apple to offer newer product categories this year. Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the company was indeed working on this. “We’ve got a lot more surprises in the works,” Cook said. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce in the fall and into 2014. We continue to be very confident in our future product plans.” Although he didn’t give out any specifics, many are expecting Apple to deliver a ‘smartwatch’ this year. The much-rumoured television by Apple, which Steve Jobs had claimed to have cracked, could also be a reality.
Also announced today was what the company called the biggest share repurchase in history as Apple said that it would have returned $100 billion to investors via buy-backs and dividends thorough 2015. The company will be returning at least $55 billion in cash through dividends to compensate for the battering the company’s stock has taken over the last few months
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