Apple announces new Records for the App Store, New Years day was its best day ever!

Apple on Thursday announced that the first week of January set a new record for billings from the App Store, with customers around the world spending nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases. It also revealed New Year’s Day 2015 marked the single biggest day ever in App Store sales history, as customers presumably used gift cards and took advantage of App Store sales.

“This year is off to a tremendous start after a record-breaking year for the App Store and our developer community,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We’re so proud of the creativity and innovation developers bring to the apps they create for iOS users and that the developer community has now earned over $25 billion.”

Furthermore, Apple announced it had a record-breaking 2014. The Cupertino-based company says billings rose 50 percent and apps generated over $10 billion in revenue for developers. App Store developers have earned a cumulative $25 billion from the sale of apps and games.

Apple launched a new website on Thursday, showing the jobs created by its ecosystem. It says more than one million jobs have been created to support Apple in the US.

Apple also bragged about its help in Global Fund to fight AIDS, saying it donated a $20 million this quarter, and since partnering with (RED) has donated over $100 million.

While there weren’t any new details for Apple Pay, the company reiterated that more banks and credit unions continue to add support for Apple Pay and it now represents about 90 percent of credit card purchase volume in the US.

Samsung ranks first for smartphones sales in Q1 2013, but Apple leads on profit!

Samsung was the world’s number one smartphone seller for the first quarter of this year in terms of revenue, overtaking Apple, data from Strategy Analytics show.

According to a report from Yonhap News, sales of Samsung’s smartphones topped $23.63 billion during the first three months of 2013, toppling the iPhone maker which had occupied the top spot in the previous quarter.

Apple posted $22.95 billion worth of smartphone sales in the first quarter, down $7.71 billion from the previous quarter. Comparatively, Samsung’s first-quarter sales figure was up $952 million from the previous quarter.

Data released by Strategy Analytics yesterday saw Samsung chalk up a record figure of 12.5 million smartphones being sold in China during the first quarter of 2013.

The latest Yonhap report said solid demand for Samsung’s high-end smartphones that run on the long-term evolution network helped to boost its sales.

Last week, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 passed 10 million channel sales within a month of its launch, becoming the company’s fastest-ever selling smartphone. The Galaxy S3 took two months to reach the same milestone.

In the latest Strategy Analytics data, Nokia came in third with sales of $3.64 billion, followed by LG Electronics with $2.95 billion in sales.

Apple, however, ranked first in terms of operating income earned by handset makers globally in the first quarter, taking a 31 percent share. Samsung came in second with a 21.8 percent share, LG third with 4.1 percent, followed by Sharp with 3 percent, the report showed.

Samsung posted operating profit of $$7.9 billion and net profit of $6.5 billion in the first quarter of 2013, while Apple recorded $9.5 billion in profit for the second fiscal quarter of 2013.

Apple earnings: $43.6 billion in sales, 37.4M iPhones, 19.5M iPads!

Apple surprised Wall Street today with stronger than expected earnings!

Apple reported earnings of $9.5 billion on $43.6 billion in sales. That was right on target with the $9.5 billion in profit and above the $42.3 billion in sales Wall Street expected, and above Apple’s own expectations, which were between $9.23 and $10.23 per share on sales of $41 billion to $43 billion.

By comparison, Apple tallied up a higher $11.6 billion in profit on sales of $39.2 billion during the same quarter last year. That was fueled by iPhone and iPad sales that were 88 percent and 151 percent better than the year before, respectively.

“We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline.”

For its next quarter, Apple said it expects sales between $33.5 and $35.5 billion and a margin between 36 and 37 percent, which is less than the $38.6 billion in sales and 38.6 percent margin analysts, on average, were expecting ahead of the call.

 

Here are all of the important numbers:

• Revenue – $43.6 billion
• EPS (earnings per share) – $10.09
• Gross margin – 37.5%
• iPhones – 37.4 million
• iPads – 19.5 million
• Macs – Just under 4 million
• iPods – 5.6 million

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