News: Apple Reports Q1 Results

Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 first quarter ending December 27, 2014. In the conference call, Apple posted quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion and quarterly net profit of $18 billion, or $2.07 per diluted share.

If you recall from the fourth quarter results in October, Apple’s guidance followed a range format:

• revenue between $63.5 billion and $66.5 billion
• gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38.5 percent
• operating expenses between $5.4 billion and $5.5 billion
• other income/(expense) of $325 million
• tax rate of 26.5 percent

Apple beat those estimates this quarter, as per the press release:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 first quarter ended December 27, 2014. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $74.6 billion and record quarterly net profit of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $57.6 billion and net profit of $13.1 billion, or $2.07 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.9 percent compared to 37.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 65 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The results were fueled by all-time record revenue from iPhone and Mac sales as well as record performance of the App Store. iPhone unit sales of 74.5 million also set a new record.

“We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter, which saw demand for Apple products soar to an all-time high,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Our revenue grew 30 percent over last year to $74.6 billion, and the execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal.”

“Our exceptional results produced EPS growth of 48 percent over last year, and $33.7 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter, an all-time record,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We spent over $8 billion on our capital return program, bringing total returns to investors to almost $103 billion, over $57 billion of which occurred in just the last 12 months.”

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2015 second quarter:

• revenue between $52 billion and $55 billion
• gross margin between 38.5 percent and 39.5 percent
• operating expenses between $5.4 billion and $5.5 billion
• other income/(expense) of $350 million
• tax rate of 26.3 percent

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2015 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT on January 27, 2015 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq115. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.