Holiday sales push Apple revenue to record $88.3 bn

San Francisco Feb 2 (IANS) Buoyed by iPhone sales in the holiday season Apple posted a record revenue of $88.3 billion -- a 13 per cent increase from a year-ago -- for the first quarter of fiscal 2018 that ended on December 30.

According to the company it now has 1.3 billion active installed base of devices globally.

Apple s earnings per share rose 16 per cent to $3.89 which is also a record. International sales accounted for 65 per cent of the quarter s revenue.

"We re thrilled to report the biggest quarter in Apple s history with broad-based growth that included the highest revenue ever from a new iPhone lineup " Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement late on Thursday.

"iPhone X surpassed our expectations and has been our top-selling iPhone every week since it shipped in November " Cook added allaying reports that iPhone X has not done well since its launch.

Apple s cash reserves reached $285.1 billion in the quarter.

"Thanks to great operational and business performance we achieved all-time record profitability during the quarter with EPS up 16 per cent " said Luca Maestri Apple s CFO.

"Cash flow from operations was very strong at $28.3 billion and we returned $14.5 billion to investors through our capital return programme " Maestri added.

For its fiscal 2018 second quarter Apple forecasts revenue between $60 billion and $62 billion.

Apple sold 77.3 million iPhones in the holiday quarter.

"We ve also achieved a significant milestone with our active installed base of devices reaching 1.3 billion in January. That s an increase of 30 per cent in just two years " Cook said.

--IANS
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