Apple does it again: Record 3rd quarter results

Apple released its fiscal year 3rd quarter results this afternoon, and the numbers look great. The company posted a quarterly revenue of $49.6 billion with a net profit of $10.7 billion ($1.85 per diluted share). That’s in comparison with the year-ago quarter when Apple’s revenues were $37.4 billion with a net profit of $7.7 billion. 

Gross margin was up slightly to 39.7%, compared to 39.4% for the same quarter in 2014. International sales were 64% of the quarter’s revenue. 

iPhone unit sales were up 35% year-over-year, up to 47,534,000 compared to 35,203,000 last year. Revenues were up strongly at 59% year over year from 2014: $31,368,000 in 2015 compared to $19,751,000 in 2014. 

iPad sales continue to slump, with unit sales of “only” 10,931,000 in the quarter and revenues of $4.53 billion. Unit sales were down 18% from the same quarter in 2014, while revenues slumped 23%.

The Mac continues to be a shining product segment for Apple, with unit sales of 4,796,000 in the quarter providing revenues of $6.03 billion. Unit sales were up 9% year-over-year for the quarter, identical to the revenue increase of 9%.

The Apple Watch is included in a category called “Other Products”, which showed a sequential revenue increase over the previous quarter of 56%, up 49% over the same quarter in 2014. That indicates good sales of Apple Watches during the launch quarter.

For the fiscal 2015 4th quarter, Apple is offering the following guidance:
• revenue between $49 billion and $51 billion
• gross margin between 38.5 percent and 39.5 percent
• operating expenses between $5.85 billion and $5.95 billion
• other income/(expense) of $400 million
• tax rate of 26.3 percent

Due to difficulties, we will not be providing our regular liveblog of the earnings call.