Apple posts record-breaking Q4 2018 earnings

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Q4 is another record-breaker.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple just posted its Q4 2018 earnings report and, per usual, it was another record-breaking quarter for the iPhone-maker.

Revenue and iPhone sales came in slightly higher than Wall Street’s expectations, while Services revenue hit an all-time high of $10 billion. Another record-breaking quarter looks like it’s on the horizon, too. Apple CEO Tim says the company is heading into the holiday season with its strongest lineup ever.

“We’re thrilled to report another record-breaking quarter that caps a tremendous fiscal 2018, the year in which we shipped our 2 billionth iOS device, celebrated the 10th anniversary of the App Store and achieved the strongest revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Tim Cook, in Apple’s press release.

Apple sold 46.89 million iPhones. That’s on the high end of investor’s expectations, but flat compared to the 46 million Apple sold in the same quarter last year. With 9.7 million iPads sold, Mac sales stayed steady at 5.3 million.

The average iPhone selling price was $793 — blowing away the $750 mark most analysts were anticipating.

“We concluded a record year with our best September quarter ever, growing double digits in every geographic segment. We set September quarter revenue records for iPhone and Wearables and all-time quarterly records for Services and Mac,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We generated $19.5 billion in operating cash flow and returned over $23 billion to shareholders in dividends and share repurchases in the September quarter, bringing total capital returned in fiscal 2018 to almost $90 billion.”

For the first fiscal quarter of 2019, Apple projects it will make between $89 billion and $93 billion. That’s a little bit lower than some of the most bullish analysts were hoping for.

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