While industry analysts describe Apple's June earnings report as uneventful, with a slight miss on revenue expectations, it appears the street is expecting big things to come.
Apple reported revenue of $37.4 billion in its fiscal third quarter, compared with $35.3 billion a year ago same quarter. That boosted share price by $1.28, compared with a share increase of $1.07 for the same quarter last year. Analysts were predicting $37 billion to $40 billion.
The bigger story, as analysts note, is the margin spike Apple enjoyed. Analysts expected a gross margin of 37 percent to 38 percent. Apple brought home 39.4 percent.
"Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS [earnings per shares] growth rate in seven quarters," said Cook.
Sales are a hot point for Apple going into the second half of the year given the impending iPhone 6 and potentially the long-rumored iWatch wearable in development.
As Tech Times reported this week, the rumor mill has Apple now ordering up 80 million iPhone 6 smartphones to hit the market before the big holiday retail season.
The iPhone and iPad franchise has done well for Apple. Those products have been the dominant driving force for Apple's revenue. This year the company has sold almost 100 million iPhones already. Nearly half of those were in this last quarter alone, according to reports.
One weak spot, noted analysts, is around iPad sales, but that may soon change given the new partnership between IBM and Apple. As Tech Times noted, IBM is going to sell iPhones and iPads for enterprise needs, including 100 industry-specific solutions.
One industry watcher is focused on what's to come with Apple's ecosystem and upgrade cycle.
"We believe the power of these assets is about to be unlocked when AAPL [Apple] releases a larger-display iPhone later this quarter," ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall said, noting hardware upgrades and services should see a big boon. "In our view, this is likely to both entice Android users back to the iPhone and drive massive upgrades in the installed base."
