CUPERTINO, Calif. _ Apple said Thursday that it sold 77 million iPhones in the final three months of 2017, but reaction to the company's latest business report was tepid as its sales outlook fell below expectations and added to concerns about shipments of the high-end iPhone X.
Apple shares slipped by 1.2 percent, to $165.60 in after-hours trading as the company said that it expects sales for its current quarter to be between $60 billion and $62 billion, while Wall Street analysts had forecast Apple to report $66 billion in revenue for the quarter that ends in March.
That forecast took some of the shine off of Apple's fiscal first-quarter results, in which the company earned $3.89 a share, on $88.3 billion in revenue. Those results topped analysts' forecasts for Apple to earn $3.86 a share on sales of $87.3 billion.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a statement that during the quarter, the iPhone X, which starts at $999, has been the company's top-selling iPhone every week since it went on sale in November. Apple's total iPhone sales in the quarter came in at 77.3 million, down by 1 percent from the same period a year earlier.
However, iPhone revenue, which rose 13 percent to $61.58 billion, suggested strong acceptance of the iPhone X, as well as the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which also went on sale during the quarter.
