APPLE INC. PROFIT DOWN 18%

APPLE INC. PROFIT DOWN 18%

Apple reported earnings of $9.5 billion on $43.6 billion in sales. That was right on target with the $9.5 billion in profit and just barely above the $42.3 billion in sales that Wall Street expected. It was also above Apple's own expectations, which were between $9.23 and $10.23 per share on sales of $41 billion to $43 billion.

By comparison, Apple tallied up a higher $11.6 billion in profit on sales of $39.2 billion during the same quarter last year. That was fueled by iPhone and iPad sales that were 88 percent and 151 percent better than the year before, respectively.

"We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline."

Still, the results represent Apple's first year-over-year profit decline in a decade, an 18 percent drop from the year-ago quarter. The last time Apple posted a decline in profit from the previous year's quarter, it was the very beginning of 2003, and the company was hit by both the economic downturn and a restructuring charge, and then some.