Apple beats Street with all-time record quarterly earnings

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 first quarter ended December 26, 2015. Apple posted record quarterly revenue of $75.9 billion and record quarterly net income of $18.4 billion, or $3.28 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $74.6 billion and net income of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.1 percent compared to 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 66 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

As surveyed by Thomson Reuters, analysts’ consensus estimates for Apple Inc.’s Q116 results called for earnings of $3.23 per share and $18.22 billion in profit on $76.67 billion in revenue.

“Our team delivered Apple’s biggest quarter ever, thanks to the world’s most innovative products and all-time record sales of iPhone, Apple Watch and Apple TV,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “The growth of our Services business accelerated during the quarter to produce record results, and our installed base recently crossed a major milestone of one billion active devices.”

Apple Q116 unit sales:
• iPhone: 74.779 million units
• iPad: 16.122 million units
• Mac: 5.312 million units

According to FactSet, analysts expected the following:
• iPhone units: 75 million, up less than 1% YOY
• iPad units: 18 million, down 16% YOY
• Mac units: 6 million, up 9% YOY

“Our record sales and strong margins drove all-time records for net income and EPS in spite of a very difficult macroeconomic environment,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO, in a statement. “We generated operating cash flow of $27.5 billion during the quarter, and returned over $9 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends. We have now completed $153 billion of our $200 billion capital return program.”

Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $.52 per share of the Company’s common stock. The dividend is payable on February 11, 2016, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 8, 2016.

Apple is providing the following guidance for its fiscal 2016 second quarter:
• revenue between $50 billion and $53 billion
• gross margin between 39 percent and 39.5 percent
• operating expenses between $6 billion and $6.1 billion
• other income/(expense) of $325 million
• tax rate of 25.5 percent

According to FactSet, analysts expected Q216 guidance of $55.6 billion in revenue, down 4%.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2016 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PST on January 26, 2016 at www.apple.com/investor/earnings-call/.

38 Comments

    1. I hope that this report calls as all of the gabbers and Adalist to switch there attention to Google. I am a stockholder and will be very happy with the returns that I am getting. I don’t need 25% growth and I don’t need Andelist to tell me what to do and I am glad that Tim Cook doesn’t cater to them either

    1. Yahoo is a massive foe for apple…
      All u have to do is check headlines on their site for apple.

      Apple did phenomenally good ,, specially given the currancy headwinds…. They Broke records! Again …. do u see that in the headlines…???
      Oor do u see a flood of negative spin and cherrypicking isolated negatives

      1. The financial press will call $18 billion in profit for a single quarter “disappointing”…even though Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon could only dream of achieving such numbers.

        1. “The financial press will call $18 billion in profit for a single quarter “.
          They called “the problem” of too much cash.
          Also no way, Apple can’t make that sort of money again!.
          Stock tanks.

      2. “did not beat the street”

        Are you sarcastically joking, or are you just a stupid, stupid troll?
        While the rest of the computer industry continuously declines, Apple has ANOTHER record quarter, and some people want to turn it into a negative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        1. I think you and all of you other cronies ought to listen to the financial news channels before you go off half cocked. They all acknowledge that Apple is a company with amazing record number of sales and they are nothing short of a true success story, but in this day the smartphone sales are starting to plateau and Apple has a huge segment of the smartphone market in the US. China is another matter and they face some huge competition it Chinas own market with the likes of Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei. They have a huge advantage in their home market and are making phones with amazing specs for a lot less money than what it cost the Chinese to buy and iPhone. Also, the stock is going to take a beating not for disappointment of the reports as much as it’s just plain over owned! They split the damned stock 6 times since the late 90’s! Apple isn’t going anywhere and they will most likely come out with another huge break through product, whether it be the car project Titan or in the TV industry. Both are a very strong likely hood. They’re not fools and wouldn’t bank everything on the iPhone and it’s music business.

    1. They beat the Street in two out of the three major categories. They didn’t beat the Street on gross revenue. But from a purely financial and business standpoint (where it really should matter to the Street more than gross revenue) they got it better than the Street. Apple’s Gross Margin was up and that made net income up and income per share up. The latter drives the P/E down which is *supposed* to make the stock more attractive — except in Apple’s case.

      The Street be damned. Apple, as a business, succeeded where it counts.

      What will it take for the Street to stop bashing Apple? A P/E of less than one?

  1. Here is a huge consumer products company that in a challenging macroeconomic environment did extraordinarily well. It speaks to how good Apple management really is. The price per iPhone and margins suggest they have room to do what is necessary to increase market share “if necessary.”

  2. Apple did not “Beat the Street”! Yes, they reported slightly higher YoY earnings, but the street had slightly higher expectations. Geez, will you guys quit with the “Apple is going to take over the world!”?

  3. What a wacky world. “Estimates” which are wrong compared to reality used to be seen as something for the estimators to fix, tat is, the shortcoming is owned by the estimators. But today being disconnected from reality does not mean one is incompetent, it means reality must be wrong! Talk about a “reality distortion field.” Reality sets the targets, and if your estimate is wrong try to learn from YOUR mistake. But fat chance that will happen, it takes away too much of the room for stock manipulation.

  4. Can we just be honest for a change? It was a very good quarter but in the middle of their guidance. Impressive the scale they are operating at, cash they are generating, size of the installed base and all that good stuff. On the other hand, guidance for Q2 is $3 to $8B LESS than last year – that’s what everyone was expecting and the rumors were true. For real investors who look at future sales and PE based on future earnings this justifies the pullback on share price. That said, their PE is still far less than other more risky public companies. But given their scale and lack of a clear driver for major growth until the TV service or the car materialize, it seems appropriate to be cautious. I’d like to think their services business driven by their humongous installed base is going to grow like everyone thinks Google and Amazon are but its just not happening to the extent we all hoped, yet. And I am still long on Apple.

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