Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2024 second quarter ended March 30, 2024. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $90.8 billion, down 4 percent year over year, and quarterly earnings per diluted share of $1.53.

“Today Apple is reporting revenue of $90.8 billion for the March quarter, including an all-time revenue record in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “During the quarter, we were thrilled to launch Apple Vision Pro and to show the world the potential that spatial computing unlocks. We’re also looking forward to an exciting product announcement next week and an incredible Worldwide Developers Conference next month. As always, we are focused on providing the very best products and services for our customers, and doing so while living up to the core values that drive us.”

“Thanks to very high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, our active installed base of devices has reached a new all-time high across all products and all geographic segments, and our business performance drove a new EPS record for the March quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “Given our confidence in Apple’s future and the value we see in our stock, our Board has authorized an additional $110 billion for share repurchases. We are also raising our quarterly dividend for the twelfth year in a row.”

Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.25 per share of the Company’s common stock, an increase of 4 percent. The dividend is payable on May 16, 2024 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on May 13, 2024. The board of directors has also authorized an additional program to repurchase up to $110 billion of the Company’s common stock.

Here’s how Apple did versus LSEG consensus estimates in the March quarter:

• EPS: $1.53 vs. $1.50 estimated
• Revenue: $90.75 billion vs. $90.01 billion estimated
• iPhone revenue: $45.96 billion vs. $46.00 billion estimated
• Mac revenue: $7.5 billion vs. $6.86 billion estimated
• iPad revenue: $5.6 billion vs. $5.91billion estimated
• Other Products revenue: $7.9 billion vs. $8.08 billion estimated
• Services revenue: $23.9 billion vs. $23.27 billion estimated
• Gross margin: 46.6% vs. 46.6% estimated

Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that year-over-year sales suffered from a difficult comparison to the year-ago period, when the company realized $5 billion in delayed iPhone 14 sales from Covid-based supply issues.

“If you remove that $5 billion from last year’s results, we would have grown this quarter on a year-over-year basis,” Cook said. “And so that’s how we look at it internally from how the company is performing.”

Apple said iPhone sales fell nearly 10% to $45.96 billion, suggesting weak demand for the current generation of iPhones, which were released in September. The sales were in-line with analyst estimates, and Cook said that without last year’s increased sales, iPhone revenue would have been flat. 

Cook also said Apple has “big plans to announce” from an “AI point of view” during its iPad event next week as well as at the company’s annual developer conference in June. 

Services was a bright spot during the quarter. Sales rose 14.2% to $23.9 billion. That’s how Apple reports revenue from its subscription services, warranties, licensing deals with search engines, and payments. Apple has a broad definition of subscribers, which includes users subscribing to apps through Apple’s App Store, and said that it has over 1 billion paid subscriptions.  

Sales in Greater China, Apple’s third largest region, were off 8% to $17.8 billion in revenue, which was significantly better than the $15.25 billion in sales expected by FactSet analysts, potentially quelling investor worries that Apple may have been losing market share to local competitors such as Huawei.  

“I feel good about China, I think more about long term than to the next week or so,” Cook said. 

Cook told CNBC that iPhone sales grew in China during the quarter. “That may come as a surprise to some people,” Cook said.  

In addition to the buyback authorization, Apple said it would pay a 25 cent dividend, a one cent increase. Apple’s $110 billion buyback authorization is the largest-ever in history, ahead of Apple’s previous repurchases, according to data from Birinyi Associates.  For more, read the full CNBC report.