The Cupertino giant, unable to hit another period of record sales: for its fiscal fourth quarter revenues amount at 51.5 billion dollars, with a net profit for the quarter of 11.1 billion, merely about 1.96 dollars per share; thus recording an increase of 31 percent compared to the same period in 2014, where turnover amounted to 42.1 billion and profits were 8.5 billion dollars. These results exceeded estimates made by Wall Street.
This large increase is due to record sales of its most important products:
The question many experts are asking is whether Apple will be able to maintain this rate of growth for 2016, since the company has always guaranteed to investors double-digit growth rates.
In order to keep this high level of growth, Apple oriented its strategy on three sides: first of all the company tried to increase its customers by expanding the range of products, in 2016 Appple will introduce new lines of products: a bigger iPad, the iPad Pro, and they will begin shipping a new Apple TV. Still on customers, the company managed its attempt to increase the number of customers switchers.
Another important point where the company oriented its own strategy is the Chinese market where Apple has continued to grow. Sales in this region jumped 99 percent in the quarter to 12.5 billion dollars. This area has remained the second largest market of the company.
The record results for the September quarter of Apple led to a 38 percent growth in earnings per share and operating cash flow of 13.5 billion. Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, said they will return over 17 billion dollars to shareholders during the quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and now they have completed over 143 billion of the 200 billion provided by their program of return of capital.
The Board of Directors of Apple declared a cash dividend of 52 cents per share of common stock of the company. Over the past few years, Apple has taken advantage of low interest rates to borrow billions of dollars that have redistributed to shareholders through dividend payments and share buybacks.
Jurgen Gjini
This large increase is due to record sales of its most important products:
- IPhone, the company announced they sold 48 million iPhone, 22 percent more than in the same period last year. Tim Cook also said that 30 percent of those who bought a new iPhone during this quarter, which ended last Sept. 26, was previously a smartphone user based on Google’s Android OS. This is the highest percentage of switchers achieved in a single quarter.
- Mac sales have increased to 5.7 million from 5.5 million.
- Apple Watch, a product that debuted last April, has not brought big sales, but the category called “other products”, which also includes the watch, recorded 3 billion dollars of revenues in the quarter, compared with 2.6 billion dollars in the previous quarter, which was the first period that included sales of the device.
The question many experts are asking is whether Apple will be able to maintain this rate of growth for 2016, since the company has always guaranteed to investors double-digit growth rates.
In order to keep this high level of growth, Apple oriented its strategy on three sides: first of all the company tried to increase its customers by expanding the range of products, in 2016 Appple will introduce new lines of products: a bigger iPad, the iPad Pro, and they will begin shipping a new Apple TV. Still on customers, the company managed its attempt to increase the number of customers switchers.
Another important point where the company oriented its own strategy is the Chinese market where Apple has continued to grow. Sales in this region jumped 99 percent in the quarter to 12.5 billion dollars. This area has remained the second largest market of the company.
The record results for the September quarter of Apple led to a 38 percent growth in earnings per share and operating cash flow of 13.5 billion. Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, said they will return over 17 billion dollars to shareholders during the quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and now they have completed over 143 billion of the 200 billion provided by their program of return of capital.
The Board of Directors of Apple declared a cash dividend of 52 cents per share of common stock of the company. Over the past few years, Apple has taken advantage of low interest rates to borrow billions of dollars that have redistributed to shareholders through dividend payments and share buybacks.
Jurgen Gjini