Apple hits iPhone sales record with iPhone 7, but iPad and Mac sales continue to falter

No headphone jack? No problem. Apple's iPhone 7 becomes the company's biggest selling smartphone

Apple set a new sales record for the number of iPhones it sold during the final quarter of 2016, but the iPad and Mac lines failed to sell in quite such impressive numbers.

Sales of iPhones for the company's fiscal first quarter weighed in in at 78.3 million, up from the 74.78 million sales announced this time last year and came in two million higher than Wall Street had expected. This sets a new quarterly sales record for the company, which this time last year admitted that it had seen its slowest iPhone growth to date.

This suggests that the iPhone 7 has proven to be Apple's most successful smartphone release to date, despite receiving a lacklustre reception at the time and receiving plenty of criticism surrounding its lack of headphone jack.

Apple also boasted that it has set "all-time revenue records" for the Apple Watch - but didn't disclose how many it had actually sold during the three-month period.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was pretty pleased regardless, saying: "We're thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch."

While Apple's Mac division brought in more cash for the company than ever before, sales came in at just 5.3 million units - the exact same number sold this time last year. This suggests that Apple's newfangled MacBooks haven't been selling all that well, but that the firm reaped the financial rewards regardless thanks to the laptop's inflated pricing.

Things aren't looking too good for the iPad, either, as sales of the tablet continue to fall. Apple shipped 13 million during the holiday period, down from 16.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

Apple is unlikely too miffed, though, as it took home $78.4bn (around £59.4bn) in revenue and made $17.89bn (£14.2bn) in profit for the first quarter. Revenues are up from 2016's $75.9bn, but profit fell short of the record $18.4bn the company announced in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue from services, which includes Apple Pay, Apple Music, App Store sales and iCloud storage, also performed well. It was the fastest-growing segment at the company this quarter, with revenues climbing 18 per cent to $7.17bn compared to the first quarter of 2016.

"Revenue from services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline," Tim Cook added.