Apple Inc.'s fiscal third-quarter earnings more-than-doubled as the company on Tuesday reported surging sales of its iPhone and iPad touchscreen tablet.
Apple's iPhone continued to be a key driver of growth with the company, selling more than 20 million units in the latest quarter, more-than-double the prior year's total. The iPhone continues to be a strong player in the smartphone market, despite an onslaught of competing devices running software from Google Inc.
For the quarter ended June 25, Apple reported earnings of $7.31 billion, or $7.79 a share, up from $3.25 billion, or $3.51 a share, a year earlier. Revenue jumped 82% to $28.57 billion, even though the company broke with past practice and didn't release a new iPhone.
The maker of computers and electronics devices, known for giving conservative guidance, said it expects fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of about $5.50 a share on revenue of about $25 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of $6.45 a share on $27.72 billion in revenue.
Asked about the lower-than-expected guidance during a conference call, an Apple executive said the company is planning a "future product transition" for the fourth quarter that will "impact" its results. Apple often makes lower margins when it introduces a new product as it improves its manufacturing processes.
The comments could suggest the launch of a new iPhone, which The Wall Street Journal recently reported could be introduced before the end of September.
The strong performance, which was powered by better-than-expected sales of both the iPhone and iPad, underscores the consumer-electronics giant's continued transition into a mobile-device company. Mobile devices, including Apple's iPod music player, accounted for nearly three-quarters of its revenue.
The blowout earnings come as the Cupertino, Calif. gadget maker gears up for new products. It has offered a peek at its new iCloud Internet service, an attempt to catch up to similar services offered by Hewlett-Packard Co.(HPQ) and Google. ICloud synchronizes and backs up data from a customer's device and will be released alongside a software update for the company's iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch products in the fall. Breaking with past practice, Apple did not release a new iPhone during
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