Dive Brief:

• The iPhones 6 pushed Apple Inc.'s Q4 beyond expectations, and set a net income record for the company’s fourth quarter at $8.5 billion on revenue of $42.1 billion.

• Apple said it sold 39.2 million phones this quarter, up from 33.8 million last year. Apple sold fewer iPads than it did last year, however: 12.3 million compared to 13.1 million that analysts expected and the 14.1 million Apple actually sold in Q4 last year.

• Meanwhile, Apple Pay debuted Monday, with several retailers all set to accept the Touch ID-enabled payment system and many bank and payment apps all set to work with it. 

Dive Insight:

Expectations of Apple’s performance this quarter were set pretty high by CEO Tim Cook, who has been exuberant about the company’s new lineup of phones, computers, and its Apple Watch. Still, Cook didn’t reveal numbers of new iPhones sold beyond the first weekend.

"The first 30 days, we have set a new high-water mark for the most orders taken. And I don't mean by a little. By a lot, a whole lot," said Cook. 

Meanwhile, Apple Pay opens a new chapter in mobile payments, but it’s still hard to tell what the future holds. A lot depends on how many retailers are set up to use it, and that looks to be on track to go wide. But even more rests on the extent of consumer adoption. For one thing, many retailers believe their customers won’t like the fact that retailers can’t track loyalty programs or offer rewards based on Apple Pay transactions, a consequence of Apple Pay’s added security. As Forrester Research analyst Denée Carrington said of Apple Pay in BusinessWeek, “Data privacy is a double-edged sword.”

Still, so far so good, according to reports of early experimentation with Apple Pay.