Apple looks to strong quarter after increased sales across products

Apple Inc projected a strong holiday quarter following a better-than-expected 16 per cent increase in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, others sales, coupled with the strongest growth in Mac computer shipments in years which helped the company surpass Wall Street's targets, Reuters reported.

The company yesterday projected stronger-than-expected revenue of $63.5 billion to $66.5 billion in the December quarter.

Shares of Apple were up 1.3 per cent to about $101.10 in after-hours trade.

iPad sales, which helped launch the mainstream tablet market in 2010, declined for the third straight quarter.

A gradual decline in tablet demand worldwide had left investors already concerned with Apple's slowing growth, worried and expecting a new device that could energise its expansion.

Sales of Apple's tablet were down over 7 per cent from the previous quarter to 12.3 million units, and were down 13 per cent from the year-ago period.

Some investors pin hopes on Apple's recently forged alliance with International Business Machines Corp, intended to drive tablet and phone sales to corporate customers. They believe the tie-up might help reverse a decline in sales of the tablet device.

Chief financial officer Luca Maestri said in an interview that the pair of tech giants had already signed on 50 "foundational" or initial clients, and the two intended to introduce their first jointly designed software apps next month.

Meanwhile in yesterday's earnings conference call with analysts, Apple's chief executive Tim Cook explained why he remained  "very bullish" about iPads even as the tablet's sales fail to maintain the growth rates of iPhones or Macs in every region, appleinsider reported.

The September quarter, saw Apple sell 12.3 million iPads, against 14.1 million in the year ago quarter. While the figures came in lower than last year, iPad sales remained above Wall Street's expectations.

"Apple continues to sell more iPads each month than the combined tablet sales of the rest of the top five tablet vendors, globally - Samsung, Asus, Lenovo and Acer."

Addressing iPad sales while responding to an analyst's question, Cook stated, "I know that there's a lot of negative commentary in the market but I have a little different perspective on it.

"Instead of looking at it every 90 days, if you back up and look at it, we've sold 237 million in just over four years. That's about twice the number of iPhones we sold in the first four years.

"If you look at the last 12 months of iPad, we sold 68 million, and in 2013 we sold 71 million. We're down, but we're down 4 percent on the sell in [to inventory channels], and the sell through [to end buyers] was a bit better than the negative 4 because we took down channel inventory some."