The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus propelled Apple to a record-breaking performance during the holiday shopping season, as the company sold 74.5 million iPhones in a single quarter. That’s a 46% increase from the year-ago quarter, when holiday shoppers were picking up the iPhone 5S and 5C models.
Record iPhone sales were matched by record revenue and profits. Quarterly revenue was up 30% year-over-year to $74.6 billion, two-thirds of which came from outside the United States. Profit came in at $18 billion, or $3.06 per share.
“The execution by our teams to achieve these results was simply phenomenal,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’d like to thank our customers for an incredible quarter.”
Wireless carriers are also grateful to those customers who upgraded to new iPhones. As price wars erode carrier service revenue, device upgrades are driving more top-line growth for carriers.
The iPhone’s phenomenal success has not made Apple the world’s leading smartphone maker. Samsung still holds that title, although its market share has been slipping recently. Conversely, Apple is the world’s leading maker of tablets, but iPad sales are on the decline, down 21% year-over-year during the fourth quarter.
Apple is eager to tap new markets for connected devices. The company has set a time for the launch of its smart watch, saying yesterday that the Apple Watch will ship this April.
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