Apple revenue touches $42.1b

SAN FRANCISCO: The new big-screen iPhones helped propel Apple's profit and revenue in the past quarter, as the California tech giant delivered stronger-than-expected results.

Profit rose 13% to $8.5 billion, as revenues jumped to $42.1 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ending September 27.

Apple said it sold more than 39 million iPhones in the quarter, boosted by the launch last month of the big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. That compared with 33.8 million in the same period a year ago.

The iPhone accounted for more than $23 billion in revenue, better than half of Apple's overall receipts.

Sales of iPads — which may have been lower ahead of the October launch of new models — fell from a year earlier to 12.3 million.

Apple also sold 5.5 million Mac computers and 2.6 million iPods. The results were the best ever for the September quarter, and the fiscal year just ended "was one for the record books," chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.

Trip Chowdhry at Global Equities Research said Apple's quarterly report "handsomely beats (expectations) on both top line and bottom line" and added that "these results validate our investment thesis Apple is a multi-year, multi-product, multi-service and multi-geography growth company."

Apple shares rose 1.1% to $100.91 in after-hours trade. Apple last month increased the screen size for its new iPhones, yielding to consumer preference and following a trend begun by rivals including Samsung.

The iPhone 6 Plus is Apple's first product in the growing market for "phablet" phones which are increasingly replacing tablets.

Apple's smartphone market share is strong in the US market but globally was less than 12% in the second quarter, ahead of the latest launch, according to research firm IDC.

In a cooling tablet market, Apple's market share has slipped to 25%, compared to 70% for the rival Android platform, according to Strategy Analytics.