Apple profit falls despite brisk iPhone sales
Customers wearing hand-made iPhone headpieces smile as they wait to purchase Apple’s new iPhone 5 outside an outlet of Japan’s biggest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo, in Tokyo on September 20, 2013. Apple’s new iPhone 5s and ‘cheap’ 5C models on September 20 went on sale in Japan.
Apple profits fell for the third consecutive quarter, but the technology giant expects that newly released iPad models will sell briskly during the 2013 holiday season.
Apple's newly-released iPhone 5S and 5C accounted for much of the company's business in the fourth fiscal quarter, reports the Wall Street Journal, with 33.8 million units sold. That's up 26 percent from the same period last year.
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Apple shares slipped about 2 percent to $519.19 after closing on Monday, reports Reuters.
Apple said it expected a revenue between $55 billion and $58 billion for the current quarter, ahead of the $55.65 billion Wall Street forecast.
Apple's fiscal year ended with a profit of $37 billion, a mammoth sum that still represents the first decline in earnings that the company has seen in 11 years.
Apple's slowdown in growth from its formerly remarkable advances may be due to increased competition from other companies in both the tablet and smartphone sectors. And no game-changing new products like the iPad or iPhone have been unveiled in recent years.
"Where [Steve] Jobs was focused like a laser on profit, [Apple CEO Timothy] Cook is focused like a laser on revenue," said independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle to Agence France-Presse.
"The problem is that Apple stock trades on the Jobs model and the profit margin is slowly collapsing."
Still, Apple expects holiday sales to be strong. Cook has declared the season to be an "iPad Christmas," with the new iPad Air and an iPad Mini with an enhanced Retina screen to receive special emphasis.