Apple's third quarter: $10.7 billion profit and a 'great start' for Apple Watch
Apple beat its own expectations and Wall Street's. Analysts expected Apple to pull in revenue of $49.4 billion, while Apple forecast revenue of $46 billion to $48 billion. The company didn't beat its record-breaking holiday quarter (when it made $18 billion in profit and sold 74.5 million iPhones), but it's not exactly a fair comparison.
The iPhone continues to be the company's sales juggernaut, raking in $31.37 billion on 47.5 million devices sold. Apple sold 10.9 million iPads and 4.8 million Macs.
"We had an amazing quarter, with iPhone revenue up 59 percent over last year, strong sales of Mac, all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "The excitement for Apple Music has been incredible, and we're looking forward to releasing iOS 9, OS X El Capitan and watchOS 2 to customers in the fall."
Apple Watch's strong debut
Analysts and journalists are dying to know how many Apple Watches the company sold, but those figures aren't broken out. They're in the "other products" category, tucked away with the iPod, Apple TV, and Beats headphones. Those products brought in about $1.8 billion in the third quarter last year, and $1.7 billion in the second quarter of this year. This quarter: $2.64 billion. We can't really say for sure whether the Apple Watch pulled in almost a billion dollars all on its own, but that's a pretty big jump in one quarter. (Perhaps they sold a lot of $17,000 Watch Editions)
Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told the New York Times that in its first nine weeks on the market, Apple Watch sales exceeded the iPhone and iPad in their first nine weeks of availability.
Apple's third-quarter earnings conference call begins at 2 p.m. Pacific/5 p.m. Eastern. You can listen in here and check back for more details on iPhones, Apple Watch sales, and Apple Music's launch afterward.