By Vittorio Hernandez

Cupertino, CA

Apple shares went down 5.8 percent or $24.33 on Tuesday after reports showed weaker-than-expected sales of the company's iPhone in the last quarter.

Apple has sold about 17.1 million iPhones, 21 percent more compared to 12 months ago, but still less than the 20 million smartphones sold in the fourth quarter.

With this development, Apple has lost the title as the world's largest smartphone business. That title now belongs to Apple competitor Samsung Electronics, which shipped more than 20 million smartphones in the same quarter. .

When compared to previous quarter sales, the iPhone including its older version was slower compared to sales of iPad tablet computers. Analysts are now asking if Apple missed out by not releasing the 4S sooner.

Apple officials attributed the lower sales to delays in consumer buying because of rumors that the company was set to release an iPhone 5 this fall, which turned out to be the 4S. Although the 4S sold about 4 million units on the first weekend of its simultaneous release in several countries, the data was excluded from fourth quarter sales figure which ended Sept. 24.

New Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the tech giant was thrilled with the company's very strong finish for fiscal 2011 and with customer response to iPhone 4S.

The death of company co-founder Steve Jobs has sparked interest in Apple products, causing revenues to go up to another quarterly record of $28.27 billion, up 39 percent from the previous year. Profits also rose 54 percent to $6.62 billion.

Cook forecast that iPhone sales for the coming quarter will again set an all-time record for Apple.

For the same quarter, Apple sold 11.1 million iPads, which is a 166 percent growth compared to the previous year. However, the growth was quite slow since previous quarter sales were 9.2 million tablet computers.

 

Investing - Apple Shares Fall on Weaker-Than-Expected iPhone Sales | Apple

 

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