Apple will have a new chief executive in September, after 15 years with Tim Cook at the helm. He is passing the baton while the company is at a financial high, after another quarter of strong sales.
Apple on Thursday reported that revenue rose 16 percent from a year earlier to $109.42 billion, the most for a quarter ending in June. Profit grew 27 percent to $29.8 billion.
These results are the last Apple will report with Mr. Cook as chief executive. Mr. Cook, 65, will become the company’s executive chairman this fall. He will be succeeded by John Ternus, 51, who most recently was Apple’s head of hardware engineering.
Mr. Ternus is inheriting a company that is Wall Street’s darling once again. Apple this week reclaimed the title of the most valuable public company in the world, amid growing concerns over spending on artificial intelligence. The company is still enjoying the popularity of the redesigned iPhones it introduced last September, even as it raised prices on its Macs and iPads last month, citing a global shortage in memory and storage chips.
The new designs Apple unveiled for the iPhone include a thin model called the iPhone Air and a model of the iPhone Pro with a raised bump across the back for cameras. The company also increased the prices of some phones by $100. The changes have continued to lift iPhone sales, which grew 22 percent to $54.25 billion.
Apple also continued to recover from years of sluggish sales in China, the largest smartphone market in the world. Its iPhones made up 18 percent of smartphone shipments to distributors in China in the quarter — more than many local rivals — after lagging a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research, which tracks the smartphone market. Apple’s sales in China rose 22 percent to $18.82 billion.
The results topped expectations. Wall Street analysts had predicted quarterly revenue of $108.85 billion and profit of $27.73 billion, according to FactSet.
Apple’s services revenue grew 12 percent to $30.74 billion, a record for the division. This month, the company quietly raised the prices for some of its services such as its music streaming service Apple Music, which now costs $11.99 per month, up from $10.99.
Apple saw modest growth in other parts of its core business. The company introduced in March a line of colorful entry-level laptops, called the MacBook Neo, driving sales of Macs, which rose 29 percent to $10.35 billion. Sales of wearables, which include products like the Apple Watch and AirPods, grew 6 percent to $7.88 billion. Sales of iPads fell 6 percent to $6.19 billion.