As Apple posted a healthy revenue of $61.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.8 billion globally for its second quarter for fiscal 2018, defying global reports of a weakened demand for its iPhones, CEO Tim Cook said the Cupertino-based tech giant has set a new first-half record in India. Buoyed by the fact that more Indians are set to move into the middle class, Cook said he will now put great energy into the growing domestic market.
"Let me start with India and then I'll talk more about China. India, we set a new first-half record. So we continue to put great energy there... Our objective over time is to go in there with all of our different initiatives from retail and everything else," Cook said during the company's earnings call late Tuesday. "And so we're working toward those things. It's a huge market and it's clear that many people will be moving into the middle class over time as we've seen in other countries," the Apple CEO added.
In the first quarter of 2018 in India, Apple was at the third spot with 20 percent market share in the premium smartphone category, according to market research firm Counterpoint Research. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple led with a 46.9 percent share of the premium segment, while OnePlus and Samsung trailed with 24.9 percent and 17.6 percent respectively. Apple's quarterly revenue of $61.1 globally billion was an increase of 16 percent from the year-ago quarter and international sales accounted for 65 percent of the quarter's revenue.
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"We're thrilled to report our best March quarter ever, with strong revenue growth in iPhone, services and wearables," Cook said in a statement. "Customers chose iPhone X more than any other iPhone each week in the March quarter, just as they did following its launch in the December quarter. We also grew revenue in all of our geographic segments, with over 20 percent growth in Greater China and Japan," he said.
As global handset profits dipped 1 percent (year-on-year) in the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple X alone generated 35 percent of the total handset industry profits, helping the iPhone maker grow 1 percent (YoY) in the same quarter.
Apple also announced $100 billion in additional stock buybacks.
"Given our confidence in Apple's future, we are very happy to announce that our Board has approved a new $100 billion share repurchase authorization and a 16 percent increase in our quarterly dividend," said Luca Maestri, Apple's CFO.
The iPhone maker reported $13 billion in revenue from Greater China.
"China, I continue to believe is a phenomenal country with lots of opportunity from a market point of view, but also lots of opportunity from an app developer's point of view," Cook said during the earnings call. "We have almost two million application developers in China that are writing apps for iOS and the App Store, and they're doing unbelievably creative work and innovative work. So we look at China holistically, not only as a market," he noted.
Apple will complete the execution of the previous $210 billion share repurchase authorisation during the third fiscal quarter.
"Our business performed extremely well during the March quarter, as we grew earnings per share by 30 percent and generated over $15 billion in operating cash flow," said Maestri.
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