Apple makes record profit with 74.8 million iPhones delivered

Apple shipped nearly as many iPhones in the quarter as it did in the same quarter a year ago. It brought Apple a record profit of $18.4 billion. However, Apple delivered considerably fewer iPads, despite the arrival of the iPad Pro.

Many analysts had expected Apple to report a drop in the number of shipped units in its quarterly earnings Tuesday for the first time in iPhone history. That is not the case, with 74.8 million iPhones delivered, Apple even narrowly surpassed last year’s record number of 74.5 million. So Apple is still able to maintain growth in delivery, although it is now lower than ever at about 0.4 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

Earnings for the quarter were $18.4 billion on revenue of $75.9 billion. In both cases, that’s a record. Last year, profit for the same quarter was $18 billion on revenue of $74.6 billion.

However, the deliveries of the iPads are once again less good. The arrival of the iPad Pro, of which the start of sales is included in the quarterly figures, has not been able to bring any improvement. Apple sold 16.1 million iPads in the quarter, compared to 21.4 million last year. The drop of nearly 25 percent is the sharpest drop since early 2014. The more expensive iPad Pro also failed to save iPad sales. The iPads delivered 21 percent less turnover than a year ago.

The number of Macs delivered shows an unexpected drop. For the first time since 2013, Apple has again recorded negative growth figures for the number of shipments of iMacs and MacBooks. Apple shipped 5.3 million Macs last quarter. A year ago there were 5.5 million.

The quarterly figures also show that sales from China at $18.4 billion now exceed sales from Europe at $17.9 billion. However, growth in China has slowed considerably: compared to last year, Apple recorded an increase in turnover of 14 percent, but a year earlier that was still 70 percent.