Apple had its biggest-ever quarter after the launch of the iPhone 12, the tech giant’s first 5G smartphone, blowing past Wall Street estimates.
The company posted $111.4 billion in sales for the three months ended Dec. 26, up 21% year over year. It was a quarterly record and Apple’s first quarter of revenue of more than $100 billion. Net income came in at $28.8 billion, or $1.68 per diluted share (up 35% from the year-ago period). Wall Street analysts on average had expected revenue of $103.28 billion and EPS of $1.41, per Refinitiv.
In the quarter, Apple’s first quarter of fiscal 2021, iPhone sales jumped 17%, to a record $65.6 billion after the new iPhone 12 models went on sale starting in late October. Services revenue for the period rose 24%, to $15.8 billion, also a record for the segment that includes the App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, iCloud and the recently launched Apple One bundles. Apple saw double-digit sales increase across all product categories.
Apple ended 2020 with an active installed base of 1.65 billion devices worldwide, including more than 1 billion iPhones.
“This quarter for Apple wouldn’t have been possible without the tireless and innovative work of every Apple team member worldwide,” CEO Tim Cook said in announcing the results.
Apple posted record high revenue in all of its geographic segments, with sales in Greater China showing the biggest jump — soaring 36% to $21.3 billion.
The iPhone 12 line includes the Pro Max model, whose 6.7-inch screen is the largest screen Apple has ever produced, priced starting at $1,099. The 6.1-inch iPhone 12 starts at $799, the iPhone 12 mini with a 5.4-inch screen starts at $699, the iPhone 12 Pro with a 6.1-inch screen starts at $999; and .
Apple said that in tests, the iPhone 12 models achieved 5G speeds up to 4 Gbps under ideal conditions on networks that use higher-frequency millimeter wave 5G (although the company cautioned that real-world speeds will vary).
As of the end of the quarter, Apple had $195.6 billion of cash and equivalents, down from $207 billion in the year-earlier period. The company returned over $30 billion to shareholders during its fiscal Q1, according to CFO Luca Maestri, and Apple announced a cash dividend of $0.205 per share payable on Feb. 11.