Apple has announced record earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2015, with revenue of US$74.6 billion and a net profit of $18 billion, or $3.06 per diluted share. Apple’s Q1 profit beat out Russian oil and gas conglomerate Gazprom’s Q1 2011 net profit of $16.24 billion for the highest quarterly profit of all time.
According to the earnings report, Apple sold a record 74.5 million iPhones last quarter and shipped more than 1 billion iOS devices to date. Apple also recorded $16.1 billion in revenue from “greater China,” up 70% from last year.
(Related: Microsoft also had its earnings call)
In a subsequent call with analysts, CEO Tim Cook said the iPhone 6 and 6+ devices have also convinced the highest-ever number of Android users to switch to iOS, declining to give exact figures. Cook also said Apple’s new Swift programming language has been downloaded more than 11 million times since its launch.
Cook’s other big reveal was an announcement that Apple Watch will begin shipping in April.
“Developers are hard at work on apps, notifications and information summaries that we call Glances, all designed specifically for the Watch’s user interface,” he said during the call. “The creativity and software innovation going on around Apple Watch is incredibly exciting, and we can’t wait for our customers to experience them when Apple Watch becomes available.”
The full transcript of the analyst call is available here.
