Sales Grow as Apple Preps iPhone 8

　　As it prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone launch, Apple Inc. reported its third consecutive quarter of accelerating annual sales growth, punctuated by an all-time high in services revenue and year-over-year growth across all product lines.

　　Apple is preparing to mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone with the launch of the iPhone 8 likely later this quarter.

　　The company on Tuesday (Aug. 1) reported sales for the most recent totalling $45.4 billion, down 28 percent compared with the previous quarter and up 15 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. Apple reported a net income of $8.7 billion, up 9 percent compared with the year-ago quarter.

　　Apple's services revenue in its fiscal third quarter grew to $7.27 billion, higher than sales of all Apple products other than iPhone. Sales — led by sales of apps, music and web services — were up 3 percent from the previous quarter and up 22 percent compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2016.

　　"We continue to see great performance [from services] all around the world, with double digit growth in each of our geographic segments," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, speaking in a conference call to discuss the quarterly results. "Over the past 12 months, our services business has become the size of a Fortune 100 company — a milestone that we've reached even sooner than we expected."

　　Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, said Apple's App Store "was a major driver of this performance, and according to App Annie's latest report it continues to be by a wide margin the prefered destination for customer purchases, generating nearly twice the revenue of Google Play."

　　During the analyst call, Cook sidestepped a question about Apple's plans to build manufacturing facilities in the U.S. — specifically U.S. President Donald Trump's recent statement that Apple plans to build three "big" and "beautiful" plants in the U.S. Trump made the statement in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week.

　　"We've created 2 million jobs in the U.S. and we are incredibly proud of that," Cook said. He added that Apple does believe it has a responsibility to create jobs in the U.S. "because Apple could only have been created here."

　　He added that Apple creates coding curriculums used in K-12 schools in the U.S. and said about two-thirds of Apple's employees are based in the U.S. even though the company generates only about one-third of its revenue in the country. He added cryptically that Apple will "have some more things that we'll say about that" later this year.