Apple stock dips after weak outlook for December quarter revenue

Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat analyst expectations for sales and earnings per share, but revealed that overall sales fell for the fourth quarter in a row. Every hardware business outside of the iPhone declined year over year, with big drops in the iPad and Mac segments. 

Apple shares fell over 3% in extended trading after executives signaled the company may not return to growth in the holiday quarter.

Here’s how Apple did, versus LSEG (formerly Refinitiv) consensus expectations: 

• EPS: $1.46 per share vs. $1.39 per share expected 
• Revenue: $89.5 billion vs. $89.28 billion expected 
• iPhone revenue: $43.81 billion vs. $43.81 billion expected 
• Mac revenue: $7.61 billion vs. $8.63 billion expected 
• iPad revenue: $6.44 billion vs. $6.07 billion expected 
• Wearables revenue: $9.32 billion vs. $9.43 billion expected 
• Services revenue: $22.31 billion vs $21.35 billion expected 
• Gross margin: 45.2% vs. 44.5% expected 

Apple didn’t give formal guidance, but finance chief Luca Maestri said the company expected December quarter revenue to “be similar to” last year’s revenue. However, Apple said that the December quarter this year will have one fewer week.

Analysts were looking for $122.98 billion in revenue for the December quarter, which would be a return to year-over-year growth of about 5% in Apple’s most important quarter.  

Net income was $22.96 billion, or $1.46 per share, versus $20.72 billion, or $1.29 per share, during the year-earlier period. The tech giant reported $383.29 billion in sales for the full fiscal year, down about 3% from the prior year. Quarterly revenue declined less than 1% in the September quarter. 

The company’s iPhone sales were in line with Wall Street expectations and…