Apple shares hit record high as iPhone X pre-sales fuel 19% rise in profits

Apple shook off production problems with its latest iPhone on Thursday to report a 19% rise in profits and record pre-sales of iPhone X, the day before its release. The company’s share price hit a record high on the news, moving the company, now worth over $868bn, closer to becoming the world’s first trillion-dollar company.

The tech company sold 46.7m of its flagship iPhones in the last three months, beating analysts’ expectations and generating revenues of $28.5m – more than half the $52.6bn it earned over the quarter, which included the launch of the iPhone 8 at the end of September.

Services, the App Store, iTunes, Apple Pay and iCloud – are now Apple’s fastest-growing business. They generated an all-time high of $8.5bn in the quarter and made $27.8bn in the 12 months ending 1 July. Sales in China were up 12%, reversing a drop off in the company’s second largest market.

Sales of its Mac computers rose 25% to $7.17bn, the best year ever for the product line, driven largely by sales of the Macbook Pro. Sales of iPads continued to bounce back after a slump, with revenue up 14%. Apple does not break out unit sales for Apple Watch but Cook said growth was over 50%.

The company is now sitting on a cash pile of $268.9bn, almost all of it held overseas in lower tax rate jurisdictions. The news comes as Donald Trump moved to bring back cash held overseas with a new tax plan outlined on Thursday.