Apple published its books this evening and was once again able to exceed sales expectations. The company exceeded expectations with earnings of $2.46 per share. Analysts had predicted earnings of $2.36 on average.
Apple generated 58.02 billion US dollars and posted a profit of 11 billion US dollars. In the second quarter of the 2018 fiscal year, sales were 61.1 billion US dollars and profits were 13.8 billion US dollars. The iPhone business is said to have brought in around 31.05 billion US dollars in the past quarter - sales from services are 11.45 billion US dollars. As announced at the end of 2018, Apple did not provide exact sales figures. Apple has forecast sales of around 52.5 - 54.5 billion US dollars for the current quarter.
Share buyback program continues – dividend increases
Analysts continue to consider the iPhone market to be saturated - customers are using their iPhones longer than in previous years. Cupertino also announced another share buyback - the company plans to buy back shares worth 75 billion US dollars. At the same time, the dividend was increased by 5 percent to 0.77 US dollars per share. After hours, the share price rose by 4.2 percent in US trading.
