Apple’s profits rise during its fiscal first quarter despite lower than expected iPhone sales

After U.S. stock markets ceased their regular trading at 4 pm ET today, Apple released its fiscal Q1 2025 earnings report. The company failed to meet Wall Street estimates for fiscal Q1 iPhone sales which totaled $69.14 billion versus estimates of $71.03 billion. The results were relatively flat with the $69.70 billion in iPhone sales Apple recorded during the same quarter last year.

Apple reported iPad sales of $8.09 billion during the fiscal first quarter of 2025. The results not only beat the $7.32 billion in tablet revenue expected by Wall Street for the three-month period, iPad revenue also increased 15.2% year-over-year during the quarter. The always important Services unit, the second largest Apple business sector after the iPhone, also topped estimates of $26.09 billion with revenue of $26.34 billion. On an annual basis, this unit saw revenues rise by 14%.

The Wearables, Home and Accessories unit, which includes the Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePods and other products suffered a small decline. Fiscal first quarter 2025 gross hit $11.75 billion versus the previous year’s $11.95 billion. 

Interestingly, Apple’s sales rose in every geographic region except for Greater China where the iPhone is having a tough time. Sales in that market dropped 11% year-over-year to $18.51 billion from the previous year’s $20.82 billion.

Net sales in other regions included:

• Americas-$52.65 billion in fiscal Q1 2025 vs $50.43 in fiscal Q1 2024.
• Europe-$33.86 billion in fiscal Q1 2025 vs $30.40 billion in fiscal Q1 2024.
• Japan-8.99 billion in fiscal Q1 2025 vs $7.77 billion in fiscal Q1 2024.
• Rest of Asia Pacific-$10.29 billion in fiscal Q1 2025 vs $10.16 billion in fiscal Q1 2024.

For the fiscal first quarter of 2025, Apple took in $124.30 billion which not only topped the Wall Street consensus of $124.12 billion, it also was up 4% on an annual basis. At $36.33 billion, net income topped last year’s $33.92 billion, and basic earnings per share came to $2.41 per share, up 10% from the fiscal first quarter of 2024.

Wall Street was not impressed with the report. After declining $1.77 (.74%) during the regular trading session to close at $237.59, Apple’s shares dropped a further $3.63 or 1.53% in after-hours trading. The stock is currently trading at $233.96. Compared to other times when Apple’s stock moved sharply following a quarterly report, this is a pretty subdued response. The conference call could still change that depending on what Tim Cook and other Apple executives say about future quarters.