Apple ends losing strain with $78B quarter

Apple’s losing strain is finally over.

Apple’s (AAPL, Tech30) sales started flourishing again in a Dec quarter, driven by stronger direct for a iPhone. It had reported 3 uninterrupted year-over-year sales declines.

The company’s sales strike $78.4 billion for a quarter, a new record high. Apple sole 78.3 million iPhones for a quarter, violence a prior record from a same entertain a year progressing of 74.8 million.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, credited a swell in partial to “especially clever direct for iPhone 7 Plus,” a incomparable and pricier iPhone model.

The holiday entertain is typically Apple’s biggest as it outlines a initial full three-month duration after a new iPhone goes on sale in September.

The batch jumped scarcely 3% in after hours trade Tuesday following a gain release.

Apple’s annual sales fell in a 2016 mercantile year for a initial time given 2001 as iPhone sales, still a infancy of a business, declined in 3 uninterrupted quarters.

Many analysts have lifted concerns that a tellurian smartphone marketplace is saturated. Customers are holding longer to reinstate their phones. And Apple’s latest iPhone is a passed ringer for a prior dual models, expelling some of a enterprise to upgrade.

The latest iPhone was suspicion to get a bump in new months from a large remember of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 over an bursting battery issue.

Related: Here’s what tech execs are observant about Trump’s immigration ban

Apple’s sales were also increased by expansion in a closely watched Services division, that includes Apple Pay, AppleCare and digital content. The division’s sales surfaced $7 billion for a quarter, adult 18% from a prior year.

However, there were some concerning sum in a report. Apple’s iPad income fell 22% from a year earlier, stability a downward turn for a product. Apple’s sales in Greater China, once suspicion to be a subsequent large market, also fell 12%.

The gain news comes during a moving time for a company. Apple now finds itself in a cranky hairs as President Trump pushes to renovate trade agreements, immigration process and moment down on abroad manufacturing.

During a campaign, Trump said he would “get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this nation instead of in other countries.”

After winning a election, Trump pronounced he told Cook that it’s his “ambition” to have Apple “build a good plant, your biggest and your best” in a U.S.

Apple was also one of many record companies to demonstrate “deep concerns” this weekend over Trump’s executive sequence putting a transport anathema in place inspiring 7 Muslim-majority countries.

“Apple would not exist though immigration, let alone flower and innovate a approach we do,” Cook said.

On a other hand, Trump has affianced to make it easier for companies like Apple to bring income hold abroad behind to a U.S. by significantly obscure a taxes on it.

Apple is now sitting on $246 billion in income and commercial securities, many of that is hold overseas.

“I am confident given what I’m discussion that there would expected be some arrange of taxation remodel this year and it does seem like there are people in both parties that would preference a repatriation as partial of that,” Cook pronounced on a discussion call with analysts after a gain release.

Cook declined to contend what a income would be used for if brought behind to a U.S., though pronounced Apple is “always looking during acquisitions.”

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_business/~3/-3BJz4i-paE/index.html