Apple outpaces sales expectations as it continues to battle surging memory chip costs

Apple beat its quarterly financial expectations in chief executive John Ternus’s first earnings report since taking over Tim Cook’s post in September, though the company continues to be pressured by a surge in memory chip costs. The iPhone maker posted revenue of $114.5 billion in its fiscal fourth-quarter, up 12% year-over-year and above Wall Street targets. Its profit was $30.7 billion, or $2.10 per share. Ternus extolled the company’s line up of products during a conference call with analysts, including the all-important iPhone business, which grew 17%, to $57.58 billion, in the three months ended September 26. Apple said that it expected overall revenue to grow between 7% and 10% year-over-year in the current, holiday quarter, seasonally Apple’s strongest quarter of the year. The forecast suggests a range of $153.8 billion to $158.2 billion, compared to the $153.2 billion that analysts were expecting. Still, the outlook seems to have left investors cold. Shares in the company fell as much as 4% in after hours trading, before recovering some ground to trade down 2.3%. Many investors have been watching the impact of rising memory chip prices on Apple and how it will weigh on profit margins. Ternus has marked his first couple of months at Apple with a slew of product releases that have helped the engineer savant show off Apple’s latest innovations and ease into the new job.