Apple increases revenue – but faces difficulties in China – E24

Apple shares fell 2% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.

Before Thursday's quarterly report, Apple had had four straight quarters with declining sales.

The company's first quarter result – Apple has had a different fiscal year – was a sales volume of $119.6 billion.

Bloomberg estimates expected a sales volume of about $118 billion.

In the most recent quarter, the company's revenue was $89.5 billion, down from $90.146 billion.

Compared to the same period last year, sales were up 2 percent, according to Apple's announcement.

Earnings per share were $2.18 in the quarter.

Apple shares rose 1.33 percent in Thursday trading on Wall Street, but fell to nearly 2 percent in after-hours trading.

The share has risen over the past year despite slight growth in profits over several years.

Recovery for iPhone and Mac

iPhone sales ended at $67.96 billion in the period, an increase of 6 percent, according to CNBC.

Mac sales rose less than 1% to $7.7 billion, an improvement over last September's report that showed a sharp decline in sales.

Meanwhile, iPad sales declined further and ended at $7.02 billion in the quarter.

The struggle in China

The company states that it now has 2.2 billion active units in use. At this time last year, the company had 2 billion active units.

Apple saw sales increase in all regions except China, where sales were down nearly 13 percent from the same period last year, CNBC reported.

Here the company faced greater competition from companies such as Huawei, while at the same time facing challenges in the form of a strong exchange rate for the dollar.

– Apple is having trouble in China, Gene Munster, founder of Deepwater Asset Management, told CNBC regarding the previous quarter's presentation.