Apple rebounded from three straight quarters of declining revenue, reporting all-time record quarterly revenue for the first quarter amid strong sales of the new iPhone 7.
The company posted revenue of $78.4 billion and all-time record quarterly earnings of $3.36 per share, up from revenue of $75.9 billion and earnings of $3.28 in the year-ago quarter.
After three consecutive quarters in which sales of the flagship iPhone fell, dragging down total revenue, Apple shipped 78.3 million units in the latest quarter, a 5% increase compared to the previous year. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were released in late September.
“We’re thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple’s highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch,” CEO Tim Cook said in a news release,
As the Chicago Tribune reports, selling more iPhones “has been getting tougher as more people hold on to older models for longer periods and competitors such as Samsung and Google entice customers with sleek devices running on Android software.”
In the first quarter, iPhone sales were also boosted by Samsung’s recall of its Note 7 phones, which were plagued by battery fires.
About 17% of all iPhones are now 7 models, according to the research firm Localytics. But The Wall Street Journal noted that the 7, while helping the first-quarter results, “did not spark the double-digit increase in overall sales of iPhones that previous new models did in their first full quarter on the market.”
Unit shipments of the iPhone jumped 46% in the October-December quarter of 2014 after the launch of the iPhone 6, for example.
“There is the chance that the 7 looks comparatively good only because the 6s underperformed, so it will take until the first quarter of the next iPhone to really know whether iPhone sales have returned to growth,” The Guardian said.
The iPad, meanwhile, continued its three-year slump, with shipments declining 19% to 13.1 million units in the first quarter.