Apple Records A $7.5 Billion Profit In The Fourth Quarter Of 2013
by Brent Dirks
October 28, 2013
Guided by strong iPhone growth, Apple has just announced its earnings results for the last fiscal quarter of 2013 that ended on Sept. 28.
Apple sold 33.8 million iPhones, a record for the quarter. Last year, Apple sold 26.9 million handsets during the same time period.
The company sold 14.1 million iPads, up slightly from the 14 million sold in the same quarter last year. Mac sales continued to slip as Apple sold 4.6 million units, down from 4.9 in the year ago quarter.
Gross margin also slipped to 37 percent, compared to 40 percent in the same period last year.
"We're pleased to report a strong finish to an amazing year with record fourth quarter revenue, including sales of almost 34 million iPhones," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're excited to go into the holidays with our new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, iOS 7, the new iPad mini with Retina Display and the incredibly thin and light iPad Air, new MacBook Pros, the radical new Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks and the next generation iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS."
"We generated $9.9 billion in cash flow from operations and returned an additional $7.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the September quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return program to $36 billion," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO.
For the important first quarter of fiscal 2014, which includes the important holiday time frame, Apple expects revenue between $55 billion and $58 billion with margin between 36.5 percent and 37.5 percent.
Apple will host a conference call at 5 p.m. ET to discuss the results. We will update you with any interesting information.
