Apple Heads Higher After Reporting an Earnings Beat

Tech giant Apple reported fiscal third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday that came in above expectations.
The company also revealed that revenue for the June quarter had seen a growth, marking the first growth in two quarters.

Shares were gaining over 4% in extended trading.

For the quarter, Apple reported earnings per share of $2.18 while analysts were waiting for $2.10 according to Refinitiv consensus estimates. Revenue at $53.8 billion was also higher than the $53.39 billion that was expected.

Looking ahead towards the fourth quarter, Apple has guided for $61 billion to $64 billion versus $60.98 billion estimate by Refinitiv consensus estimates.

“We’re very excited to report a return to growth for the quarter, and it’s a record revenue for Q3 as well, best we’ve ever had,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook to CNBC’s Josh Lipton.

“Great services quarter, unbelievable wearables quarter, significant progress on iPhone, and off-the-charts significant progress on China, compared to where we were the previous quarter,” Cook continued.

The iPhone maker spent over $17 billion on share buybacks of almost 88 million Apple shares, and had also paid out $3.6 billion in dividends and equivalents during the quarter.

“The highlight of this release and focus of investors in our opinion will be the robust September guidance for total revenue of between $61 billion and $64 billion vs. the Street’s $60.9 billion estimate,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

One highlight of the quarter was that the iPhone accounted for 48.3% of Apple’s overall revenue. This is the first time that it hasn’t contributed over half of Apple’s sales since 2012.

“Our strong services performance was broad-based,” Cook said. “We set new all-time records for AppleCare, music, cloud services, and our App Store business, and we achieved a new third quarter revenue record for the App Store.”

In other news, the Apple Card will launch in August said Cook.

The Apple Card is launching in partnership with Goldman Sachs and will provide detailed information on purchases in the iPhone’s Wallet app.

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