CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple’s latest quarterly results topped Wall Street expectations, thanks to surging sales in China and of its iPhones.
The Cupertino company reported Monday that it earned $13.6 billion, or $2.33 a share, in its fiscal period that ended March 28. In the same period a year earlier, Apple posted a profit of $10.2 billion, or $1.66 a share.
The iPhone-maker’s sales jumped 27 percent to $58 billion from its second quarter a year ago.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company to earn $2.16 a share on sales of $56.1 billion.
Sales to China jumped 71 percent from a year earlier. The dollar value of Apple’s iPhone sales jumped 55 percent.
The company also offered an outlook for this period that is more or less in line with Wall Street’s expectations. The company forecast sales of between $46 billion and $48 billion for its fiscal third quarter, which ends in June. Apple doesn’t provide specific earnings guidance, but the outlook it did offer implied that it expects earnings of between $9.1 billion and $10 billion, or about $1.56 to $1.72 a share, given its current number of shares in circulation.
Prior to the report, Wall Street analysts had forecast earnings of $1.68 a share on sales of $47.1 billion.
In anticipation of the results, investors bid up Apple’s stock in Monday’s regular trading session. Apple’s shares finished regular trading up $2.37, or 1.8 percent, to $132.65. In after-hours trading, Apple’s stock was up $1.76, or 1.3 percent, to $134.41.
