Apple earnings report for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2019 met the most bullish of Wall Street expectations this afternoon with a Q4 record high of $64 billion in revenue and $3.03 earnings per share.
Apple’s stock price started soaring in after-hours trading on news of the positive earnings. With the iPhone 11 on sale for just 10 days during Q4, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave credit to Apple’s booming service business and the Apple Watch and AirPods for pushing the quarter to record heights.
“We concluded a groundbreaking fiscal 2019 with our highest Q4 revenue ever, fueled by accelerating growth from Services, Wearables and iPad,” said Tim Cook in a statement. “With customers and reviewers raving about the new generation of iPhones, today’s debut of new, noise-cancelling AirPods Pro, the hotly-anticipated arrival of Apple TV+ just two days away, and our best lineup of products and services ever, we’re very optimistic about what the holiday quarter has in store.”
Services save Q4
iPhone revenue came in at $33.4 billion for the quarter, which was on the high-end of most analysts’ expectations. Services grew to a whopping $12.5 billion, beating some of the most optimistic predictions. Macs pulled in an additional $7 billion while Wearables made $6.5 billion and iPad’s pulled in $4.7 billion.
Looking forward to the holiday shopping season, Apple told investors it expects to pull in between $85.5 billion to $89.5 billion, which is just a bit better than the consensus prediction from analysts heading into today’s call. The company pulled in $88.3 billion in Q1 2019, so it will need strong iPhone 11 and 11 Pro sales to set a new record next quarter.
Here’s Apple’s guidance for Q1 2020:
- revenue between $85.5 billion and $89.5 billion
- gross margin between 37.5 percent and 38.5 percent
- operating expenses between $9.6 billion and $9.8 billion
- other income/(expense) of $200 million
- tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent
