Apple reports fourth quarter results

For the quarter ended in September, Apple brought in $62.9 billion in revenue and $2.91 per share in profits, beating expectations of $61.5 billion and $2.79, respectively.

Apple sold 46.9 million iPhones in the fiscal fourth quarter, missing analyst expectations of 47.5 million iPhones, according to FactSet. But the average selling price of iPhones was $793, well above analyst estimates of $750.78, according to FactSet.

For its full fiscal 2018 ended in September, Apple reported revenue of $265.6 billion and profits of $11.91 per share, beating analyst estimates of $264 billion and $11.79 per share.

Also the company on Thursday warned that sales for the crucial holiday quarter would likely miss Wall Street expectations, which Chief Executive Tim Cook blamed on weakness in emerging markets and foreign exchange costs.

Apple said it expects between $89 billion and $93 billion in revenue for its fiscal first quarter ending in December, with a midpoint of $91 billion coming in below Wall Street expectations of $93 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The disappointing forecast by the world's most valuable technology company helped send shares down as much as 7 percent, taking roughly $70 billion off Apple's market value and forcing that value below $1 trillion. The forecast could also deepen concerns for technology companies that saw a sell-off after misses by Amazon.com Inc and Google parent Alphabet Inc.

Executives said they also would quit giving the number of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers, leading to a further drop in the share price, since iPhone unit sales was long the key indicator of quarterly success.

Withholding that number will make it impossible to calculate the average selling price of phones, another key measure.

Apple executives said unit sales are becoming less relevant as customers buy bundled products that include subscription services like Apple Music.

Apple said it would start giving cost-of-sales data for its services business, an important metric for subscription businesses. But investors reacted negatively.