Apple Pops As Strong Iphone Sales Drive Q1 Outperformance

Apple (AAPL:US) shares rose on Friday after the tech behemoth delivered yet another strong quarterly performance despite a difficult macro environment. 

In its Fiscal Q2 earnigns, Apple reported profits per share of $1.52 on revenue of $94.84 billion, topping analyst expectations for earnings of $1.43 per share on sales of $92.96 billion. The closely-watched gross margins came in at 44.3%, above the 44.1% expected.

Looking at Apple’s business segments, iPhone excelled once again with sales coming in at $51.33 billion, ahead of the $48.84 billion expectations. Revenue from “Other Products” also came in better-than-expected while Apple missed analyst targets for Mac and iPad sales, as well as for Service revenue, which is seen one of the key growth drivers in the future.

Apple typically doesn’t offer guidance but it does offer forward-looking commentary on the earnings call.

“We expect our June quarter year-over-year revenue performance to be similar to the March quarter assuming that the macroeconomic outlook does not worsen from what we are projecting today for the current quarter,” CFO Luca Maestri said on a call with analysts.

As always, Apple stock tends to attract a lot of investor attention. Most recently, Congress members Daniel S. Goldman and Ro Khanna disclosed they were buying Apple shares in March while the stock was still trading in the low $150s.

On the other hand, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Sen. Tom Carper, Rep. John Curtis, as well as Representatives Diana Harshbarger and Scott Franklin were all selling Apple shares in the opening months of 2023.