Paresh Dave & Nivedita Balu

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters – Apple Inc. reported on Thursday record sales and profit for its fiscal second-quarter. The company managed to manage chip shortages while consumers bought new iPhones.

The Americas saw sales rise 19%, while Europe and China saw single-digit increases.

After-hours trading saw Apple shares (NASDAQ 🙂 rise by around 3%

Silicon Valley’s iPhone manufacturer is the largest by market capitalization. It aims to keep the iPhone in high demand and grow sales of services such as music, video, and subscriptions.

Recent results indicate that it has made progress on both these goals.

Luca Maestri (Apple Chief Financial Officer) stated that “continued high demand for products and a record number of sales for services.”

Apple’s total fiscal second-quarter revenues were $97.3 billion. That’s 8.6% higher than last year. Analysts’ average estimate was $93.89 billion. Refinitiv data also shows that Apple’s revenue was 9.3% higher.

Apple has warned of lower foreign exchange rates, different launch timings and slower sales growth in the past quarters.

Worldwide phone sales revenues for the quarter were $50.6 billion. This is 5.5% more than a year ago and higher than the average estimate at $47.88 trillion. Apple’s second most important segment was services. It saw an 17% increase in sales to $19.8 billion. This is just below the $19.71 billion average.

The profit was $2.52/share, which is $25 billion more than analysts expected.

Apple announced an increase of 5% in its dividend, to $0.23 per Share. Board approval was also given to purchase back $90 billion worth shares.

As the price of food, oil and other essentials rises, investors have warned that consumers will be less inclined to spend on gadgets and tech services.

Many consumers have also put more money in travel and entertainment as COVID-19 is less severe, which has a negative impact on their technology budgets.

Remote working has reduced the demand for high-end, expensive phones and upgrade as more people commute.

Remote work is a benefit to other companies.

Sales of IPads dropped 2%, to $7.65billion. However, they were higher than the average analyst estimate of $7.14billion.

The revenue from Mac computers increased 14.7% to $10.4 Billion, in comparison with $9.25 Billion estimates.

Comparatively to $9.05 billion estimates, sales of home speakers, accessories and wearables rose 12%, reaching $8.8 trillion.

However, new China-Taiwan lockdowns, which are where parts of iPhones and iPhones are made, may create additional obstacles to supply and demande in this quarter.

Services business could be subject to US, South Korea, South Africa, and Netherlands antitrust sanctions.

Apple claims it now has 825,000,000 paying subscribers in its seven subscription options, up 40M from 785M last quarter. Apple’s subscription growth coincides with rivals Netflix Inc (NASDAQ) reporting subscribers losses.

Apple could also be affected by labor unrest. Over 70% of more than 100 Apple employees in Atlanta supported a petition for an election. This would allow the shop to be the first to join the union.