(Reuters) – Apple Inc’s quarterly results blew past Wall Street’s expectations after U.S. consumers snapped up near-unprecedented numbers of iPhones and iPads, sending its shares up 8 percent into record territory.
The world’s most valuable technology corporation returned to form after a rare miss in the previous quarter, assuaging investors’ worries that its sheer size meant it was headed into a period of slower growth.
It sold 37.04 million iPhones – its flagship product – and 15.43 million iPad tablets, doubling from a year earlier and easily outpacing already heightened expectations for a strong holiday season. That helped swell its warchest of cash and securities to almost $100 billion – more than enough to plug December’s U.S. budget deficit and level with California’s 2012/13 spending plan.
via Apple returns to form, blows Street targets away | Reuters.
