Apple banks on Christmas boom as Q4 profit drops

Cupertino giant sees third consecutive profit slump, but claims it is 'excited' to go into the holidays with new products

Apple is banking on a successful sales run for its latest iPhone and iPad releases after its Q4 results revealed a profit drop for the third consecutive quarter.

Net profit for the three months ended 28 September 2013 stood at $7.5bn (£4.6bn), compared with $8.2bn in Q4 2012. However, sales were up from $35.9bn in 2012 to $37.4bn in Q4 2013.

For the full year, profit stood at $37bn compared with $41.7bn in the 12 months ended September 2012, and gross margin dropped three per cent to 37 per cent for the year.

However, the fruity-named vendor said its iPhone sales had grown 26 per cent to mark a new September quarter record, shifting 33.8 million phones in the quarter. It also revealed it had sold 14.1 million iPads during the quarter, up 0.1 per cent on the year-ago quarter. Mac sales dropped slightly from 4.9 million in Q4 2012, to 4.6 million.

Earlier this month the vendor launched its latest batch of devices – the iPhone 5 and iPad Air tablets – with its usual pomp and circumstance.

Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, said: “We are pleased to report a strong finish to an amazing year with record fourth-quarter revenue, including sales of almost 34 million iPhones. We’re excited to go into the holidays with our new iPhone 5c and light iPad Air, new MacBook Pros and radical new Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks and the next-generation iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS.”

Peter Oppenheimer, chief financial officer at Apple, added: “We generated $9.9bn in cashflow from operations and returned an additional $7.8bn in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the September quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return programme to $36bn.”

Looking forward, the firm expects its fiscal first quarter to generate revenue of between $55bn and $58bn, with gross margin between 36.5 and 37.5 per cent.