Apple sold 47.8M iPhones in Q1, missing analyst expectations

Despite reports of slowing iPhone demand, Apple ended up selling 47.8 million iPhones during the first quarter of 2013 — and still missing analyst expectations.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster expected Apple to ship 50 million iPhones, while KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expected 52 million. The figures may be disappointment to investors, but they still set a new record for Apple, and it was a healthy bump from last year’s 37 million units.

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The iPhone accounted for $30.6 billion of Apple’s $54.5 billion revenue during the quarter, up from almost $24 billion in revenue last year. Apple sold 22.9 million iPads during the quarter, just about meeting Wall Street expectations.

At this point, it’s tough to tell who we should be disappointed at: Apple for missing the Street’s expectations, or the analysts for expecting too much. For now, we can expect Apple’s stock to take more of a clobbering. It fell below $500 earlier this month after reaching a high of $700 last September.

During Apple’s earnings call today, chief executive Tim Cook revealed that the company sold 10 iOS devices per second lasat quarter and more than 500 million iOS devices to date. Cook noted that iPhone sales grew the most in China, where they doubled year over year.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat