Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock was down 0.02% towards the end of the noon hour on February 27. Shares of Apple have climbed 4.1% week over week as tech stocks have performed particularly well during the recent rally in U.S. stocks following a global rout earlier in the month.
Apple recently announced that it was planning to release three new smartphones later in 2018, and the products appear to be a deviation from the most recent offerings. It plans to release the largest iPhone in the company’s history, an upgraded model in the same vein as the iPhone X, and an affordable model with all of the traditional Apple features. This comes after its chief competitor Samsung unveiled the next line of its Galaxy smartphones last week. Samsung surprised analysts by boasting that its smartphones would cost less than earlier projections, which should ramp up the urgency from Apple.
Apple released its first quarter results on February 1. The company reported quarterly revenue of $88.3 billion which represented a 13% increase from the prior year. Earnings per diluted share rose 16% to $3.89 which was an all-time high. International sales also made up 65% of revenue at Apple in the quarter. Apple provided guidance for its 2018 second quarter.
The company projects revenue between $60 and $62 billion and operating expenses between $7.7 billion and $7.6 billion. Apple also projects a tax rate of approximately 15%. Apple also declared a dividend of $0.63 per share representing a 1.4% dividend yield.
