Apple Announces Fourth Quarter Results

[Maura]

iDownload Blog writes that Apple has announced financial results for its fiscal 2016 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2016, and that while the figures did meet with Wall Street’s estimates, they still made hard viewing for Apple, with iPhone sales down 3 million and revenue down $4.5 billion from the year-ago quarter.

“We are pleased to have generated $16.1 billion in operating cash flow, a new record for the September quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We also returned $9.3 billion to investors through dividends and share repurchases during the quarter and have now completed over $186 billion of our capital return programme.”

Apple gave the following guidance for its fiscal 2017 first quarter:

• revenue between $76 billion and $78 billion

• gross margin between 38 percent and 38.5 percent

• operating expenses between $6.9 billion and $7 billion

• other income/(expense) of $400 million

• tax rate of 26 percent

It’s worth noting that the $76-$78 billion that Apple is expecting to earn in the holiday quarter would be an increase from $75.9 billion in the same period last year.

Sources: Apple, Apple now has $237.6 billion and other highlights from the Q4 earnings call