Apple stock got a tepid response to forecast-beating financials

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) investors found it hard to be moved by the iPhone maker’s third quarter earnings – albeit last month’s big AI info-dump had left little room for surprises.

Revenue for the quarter was up 5% to a total of $85.78 billion, better than the $84.53 billion that was estimated by Wall Street analysts.

Net income was marked at $21.45 billion, whilst earnings per share was reported as $1.40 versus a market consensus estimate of $1.35.

iPhone sales were down 1% compared to the same period last year, coming in at $39.30 billion and beating forecasts of $38.81 billion.

Mac sales were closer to estimates at $7.01 billion versus $7.02 billion, and, Wearable sales (i.e. Apple Watches and VR headsets) generated $8.10 billion ahead of a forecast of $7.79 billion.

Services revenue was up 14% to $24.21 billion versus an estimate of $24.01 billion.

The numbers were evidently upbeat, though the ‘AI buzz’ that’s been driving valuations was already spent, as such the market response was tepid at best.

In afterhours trading, Apple stock was up 0.3% priced at $219.14.

“During the quarter, we were excited to announce incredible updates to our software platforms at our Worldwide Developers Conference, including Apple Intelligence, a breakthrough personal intelligence system that puts powerful, private generative AI models at the core of iPhone, iPad, and Mac,” chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement.