Apple Springs Higher After Reporting Earnings Despite An iPhone Sales Drop

Despite iPhone sales dropping 15% from last year, tech giant Apple still saw its shares roar after barely beating on earnings in its December quarterly report.

The iPhone maker reported first quarter results on Tuesday, with earnings and revenue that were in line with expectations, sending shares up 6% in after-hours trading.

EPS at $4.18 was a penny higher than the $4.17 that was expected by Refinitiv consensus estimates. Revenue at $84.3 billion was higher than the $83.97 billion that was forecast by Refinitiv consensus estimates.

iPhone sales for the quarter were $51.98 billion, trailing behind the $52.67 billion expected. iPhone services revenue was a beat at $10.9 billion compared to a $10.87 billion expectation.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer weighed in and said, “The issue for those who hate Apple? Sorry, guys. No more new ammunition.”

“Our customers are holding on to their older iPhones a bit longer than in the past. When you paired this with the macroeconomic factors particularly in emerging markets, it resulted in iPhone revenue that was down 15 percent from last year,” remarked CEO Tim Cook on the company’s earnings call.

“We’re very happy not only with the growth but also the breadth of our services portfolio. Our revenue from services has grown from less than $8 billion in calendar [year] 2010 to over $41 billion in calendar [year] 2018,” Cook added.

While revenue beat expectations, it was still a year over year decline of 5%. It marked the first annual evenue decline during the holiday season for Apple since 2001.

“For perspective, despite the challenging December quarter, our revenue from China grew slightly for the full calendar year,” Cook explained. “Macroeconomic factors will come and go, but we see great upside on continuing to focus on the things that we can control.”

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri also noted that Apple has 900 million installed iPhones in use around the world, and 1.4 billion total installed devices.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and have not been compensated for this article.