Apple’s Q2 Earnings Exceed Wall Street Expectations
Over the last few months, things didn’t go very well for Apple. We told you about the faulty iPhones that Apple had to send back to Foxconn and you probably also know that Apple’s stock has gone under $400 for the first time in two years. However, it seems that news headlines are about to change for the best for the iPhone company. Apple announced the second quarter earnings and the numbers are better than what Wall Street projected; in fact they are better in almost every category: during this year’s second quarter Apple sold 19.5 million iPads and 37.4 million iPhones; this made for a revenue of $43.6 billion.
The numbers for the financial second quarter of 2013 are as follows:
- Total revenue – $43.6 billion
- Earnings per share (EPS) – $10.09
- Gross margin – 37.5%
- Number of iPhones sold – 37.4 million
- Number of iPads sold – 19.5 million
- Number of Macs sold – Below 4 million
- Number of iPods sold – 5.6 million
Of course, Apple’s CEO and CFO, Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer respectively, were pleased with the second quarter numbers. Here is what they had to say: “We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad”, Tim Cook. He also added the following: “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.”. This is an interesting statement and a perhaps a hint that Apple has very interesting products ready for this Summer. “Our cash generation remains very strong, with $12.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter and an ending cash balance of $145 billion” declared Peter Oppenheimer.
The second quarter earnings were not the only thing that Apple announced. The company made another interesting announcement in regards to the plans for the huge amounts of money they have earned. It seems that Apple has green lighted a plan to buy back its own shares from the marketplace, a plan worth sixty billion dollars. The company also raised the quarterly dividend which are now $3.05 / share. Apple reserved one hundred billion dollars for its investors, money that the company aims to return to the investors by late 2015. This is without a doubt the biggest share repurchase anyone has ever witnessed. A lot of analysts that criticized Apple before (due to the company’s cash hoarding policy) will probably be quieted down with this move.
