Apple’s net income falls after a one-time charge in European tax

Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue and earnings per share were above Wall Street’s expectations, however, the company’s net income fell after it had to pay a one-time charge related to a European tax ruling.

Apple’s net income for the quarter was $14.73 billion, or 97 cents per share, as opposed to $22.96 billion, or $1.47 per share, during the same period last year. After deducting the one-time tax penalty, Apple’s adjusted earnings per share grew by 12% annually.

During Thursday’s extended trading, Apple’s stock dropped as much as 2%.  The first indication of how well the iPhone 16 is doing in the market is the 6% increase in overall iPhone revenue. Apple had around a week of new product sales throughout the quarter after the release of its product on September 20. With about 49% of all sales, it remains Apple’s most significant product.

Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that the iPhone 15’s sales were “stronger than 14 in the year-ago quarter, and 16 was stronger than 15.”

Cook said the business was looking forward to Apple Intelligence, the AI system for Macs and iPhones that began rolling out this week as part of the iOS 18.1 update.

“We have already received positive feedback from developers and customers, and based on just three days of data, we have an extremely early statistic: Users are adopting iOS 18.1 at twice the rate they did 17.1 in the same quarter last year,” Cook stated.

During a call with analysts, Apple stated that it anticipates “low to mid-single digit” growth in sales for the December quarter. Additionally, it indicated that it anticipates services growth to be almost equal to its 12.87% growth rate from the previous year.

Apple’s iPad division grew the fastest in the hardware division, with sales rising 8% to $6.95 billion. Part of that resulted from pent-up desire. After not releasing any new iPads for 2023, Apple unveiled the iPad Pro and Air models in May. Mac’s revenue increased 2% annually to $7.74 billion during the quarter.