Apple has posted yet another record set of quarterly results, with profits rising to $10.7 billion (6.87 billion) in the quarter ending June 2015 - an increase of 38 per cent year-on-year.
Revenue was also up for the Cupertino-based company, hitting a record $49.6 billion (31.7 billion), a rise of 33 per cent. In a call to investors recorded by Seeking Alpha, Apple CEO Tim Cook said this was "the fastest growth rate in over three years".
"We achieved these incredibly strong results despite reducing channel inventories across our product lines by over 1 million units and despite the challenging FX environment," said Cook.
As with the two previous quarters, the rise in profits and revenue was largely attributed to continued growth in iPhone sales.
"We had another stellar quarter for iPhone, establishing a new June quarter record. iPhone unit sales grew 35 per cent, which is almost three times the rate of growth of the smartphone market overall and we gained share in all of our geographic segments. iPhone revenue grew even more strongly, up 59 per cent," Cook said.
Sales of Macs have also contributed to the rise in profits, with unit sales rising nine per cent, bucking the overall downward trend of the PC market.
Cook also called theApple Watch "a major highlight of the past quarter", however as it only went on sale in April, there are no previous figures to compare it to.
Not everything was cheery for Apple, though, as once again iPad sales were down year-on-year. But Cook seems to be hopeful that iOS 9 and enterprise sales may change this trend.
"We're very excited about the advances in the iPad experience coming in iOS 9 in the fall, including the slide over and split view features for retail multitasking, picture-in-picture for FaceTime and video, and enhanced QuickType for composing text even faster," said Cook.
"[In enterprise] for instance, riding on the success of iPad use by its pilots, United Airlines has not only renewed its iPad programme with more than 10,000 iPad Air 2s, but has also made a strategic decision to provide iPhones to over 20,000 flight attendants.
"We're also very happy with the progress of our IBM partnership. IBM released 13 new MobileFirst for iOS apps in the June quarter, including new apps in retail banking and healthcare, as well as new horizontal apps for HR and sales. There are now 35 apps in IBM's MobileFirst for iOS catalog that connect users to big data and analytics right on their iPads or iPhones. And we expect a total of 100 apps to be available by the end of 2015," he added.
Microsoft posts record loss
While Apple's quarterly results may have put a smile on Tim Cook's face, things were a little more glum over at Redmond.
A double blow of falling Windows demand and having to write downs its Nokia phone business led to a record net loss of $3.2 billion (2 billion). Falling PC sales also compacted the problem.
However, CEO Satya Nadella indicated that the company's future success will lie in cloud services - somewhat unsurprising given his "cloud first, mobile first" mantra since taking the helm - and selling to SMBs, rather than enterprise, in this area "will offer one of [its] best opportunities for growth in the cloud".
"In fact, for more than a year now, we have seen 50,000 new SMB customers adopt Office 365 every month," Nadella claimed.
The company is not yet ready to chuck in the towel with Windows, however, and indeed could reverse fortunes in both the desktop OS and mobile sectors of its business.
"Windows 10 is more personal and more productive with Cortana, Office, universal apps, and Continuum. And Windows 10 will deliver innovative new experiences like Inking on Microsoft Edge and gaming across Xbox and PCs, and also opens up entirely new device categories, such as HoloLens," said Nadella.
"Windows 10 will deliver significant value to enterprise customers as well ... [through] advanced security capabilities with additional features for hardware-based security, mobile work and data protection. It also provides a single device management platform across all devices, from phones to laptops to Internet of Things devices. And ... helps enterprises stay up to date with Windows Update for Business and Windows Store for Business," he added.
