12 Surprises in Earnings for Apple Inc. (AAPL)

Jan. 27, 2014 — -- intro:

The first-quarter earnings of Apple Inc., the highly anticipated report describing the important holiday season, have been released, and despite record iPhone and iPad sales, investors are not so pleased.

Here are a dozen surprises that came along with the company's earnings in its first quarter of 2014, which actually runs from October to December 2013.

quicklist:title: Stock trails in after-hours trading category:text:

While Apple stock (NASDAQ: AAPL) closed at $551.19 today, up 0.94 percent, shares were down about 6 percent in after-hours trading, following the tech company's earnings release late afternoon.

quicklist:title: Apple sold record iPhonescategory:text: During the three months that ended Dec. 28, 2013, Apple sold 51 million iPhones, an all-time quarterly record, according to the company. The company sold 47.8 million iPhones in the same quarter last year. Wall Street expected the company to sell 56 to 57 million iPhones.

quicklist:title: Record iPads soldcategory:text: Apple also sold 26 million iPads during the quarter, also an all-time quarterly record, compared to 22.9 million in the same period a year ago.

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple chief financial officer, said almost every NFL team now uses iPads as playbooks instead of three-ring binders.

Apple says it sold more than 750,000 iPads to K-12 schools in Texas.

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"We are really happy with our record iPhone and iPad sales, the strong performance of our Mac products and the continued growth of iTunes, Software and Services," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "We love having the most satisfied, loyal and engaged customers, and are continuing to invest heavily in our future to make their experiences with our products and services even better."

quicklist:title: Growth of international businesscategory:text: Apple said 63 percent of Apple's business came from international sales this quarter.

In Japan, the iPhone dominates 69 percent of the country's smartphone market.

During the conference call to discuss the earnings, Apple said there was also strong growth in other regions like Latin America, the Middle East and Russia.

quicklist:title: Cash dividend for shareholders category:text:

Apple's board declared a cash dividend of $3.05 per share of the company's common stock, the earnings release stated. The dividend is payable on Feb. 13, to shareholders as of the close of business on Feb. 10.

"We generated $22.7 billion in cash flow from operations and returned an additional $7.7 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the December quarter, bringing cumulative payments under our capital return program to over $43 billion," Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer, said in a statement.

quicklist:title: Profit is flatcategory:text: Apple's profit was $13.1 billion in the three months that ended in December, lower than what Apple analysts expected and similar to the earnings in the same quarter a year ago.

quicklist:title: Revenue in the U.S. is down category:text: While overall revenue is up to $57.6 billion in this last quarter, compared to $54.5 billion in the same quarter a year ago, revenue in the U.S. is down 1 percent year over year.

quicklist:title: Revenue from China is up category:text: Meanwhile, revenue in China is up 29 percent year over year. Only weeks ago, the iPhone finally became available on China Mobile, the largest wireless provider in the world.

quicklist:title: Even higher load of cash category:text: Apple now has $159 billion in cash, up from $147 billion last quarter. Its domestic cash was $34.4 billion at the end of the quarter while its overseas cash was $124.4 billion. In other words, 78 percent of Apple's cash was offshore at the end of the quarter.

Apple has spent $43 billion in share buybacks and dividends over the past six quarters

quicklist:title: Revenue forecast for second quarter category:text: Apple said that it expects second quarterly revenue of between $42 billion and $44 billion, short of the $45.74 billion expected by Wall Street analysts.

quicklist:title: Apple fans still like Apple storescategory:text: During its conference call, Apple said its retail stores averaged 21,000 visitors per store per week.

quicklist:title: Mac sales led by iMac and MacBook Air; iPod declines. category:text: Apple sold 4.8 million Macs in the last quarter, compared to 4.1 million a year ago. The company said that 19 percent boost led to "among our best Mac quarters ever," led by iMac and MacBook Air, though sales of the MacBook Pro "also remain strong," the company said during the conference call.

Sales of the iPod fell 52 percent last quarter.

"All of us have known, iPod is declining," Cook said during the conference call on Monday.

ABC News' Sandy Cannold contributed to this report.