Apple posts profit fall to $9.5bn, but revenues boosted by hardware

Apple has posted its first quarterly drop in profits in 10 years, as was predicted earlier this week – but the company’s revenues were boosted by strong iPhone and iPad sales.

In the January-March quarter this year, the tech giant made a net profit of $9.5bn, down from $11.6bn last year.

Good hardware sales across its smartphone and tablet devices, however, saw Apple revenues boosted to $43.6bn. The company sold 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads worldwide over the period.

“Though we’ve achieved a credible scale and financial success, we acknowledge that our growth rate has slowed and our margins have decreased from the exceptionally high level we experienced in 2012,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Cook called a 40% drop in Apple’s stock market value since an all-time high in September “very frustrating” but added, “The most important objective for Apple will always be creating innovative products.

“Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

Source: Music Week