SAN FRANCISCO, July 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. tech giant Apple said Tuesday that its service revenues hit a new all-time-high of 9.5 billion U.S. dollars, about 0.4 billion dollars more than analyst's expectations, in its financial report for the third quarter ending June 30, 2018.

Apple said its quarterly revenue increased 17 percent year on year to reach 53.3 billion dollars and profits of 2.34 dollars per share, up 40 percent. Its international sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter's revenue.

"We're thrilled to report Apple's best June quarter ever, and our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.

He said the third-quarter results were driven by continued strong sales of iPhone, services and Wearables.

The Cupertino, California-based company sold 41.3 million units of iPhones, 11.6 million iPads, and 3.7 million Macs during the quarter.

"Our strong business performance drove revenue growth in each of our geographic segments, net income of 11.5 billion dollars, and operating cash flow of 14.5 billion dollars," Apple's CFO Luca Maestri said.

Apple returned almost 25 billion dollars to investors through its capital return program during the quarter, including 20 billion dollars in share repurchases, Maestri said.

The U.S. tech firm forecast revenues of 60 billion dollars to 62 billion dollars for its fiscal fourth quarter, and the gross margin will range from 38 percent to 38.5 percent.

Its operating expenses will stand between 7.95 billion dollars and 8.05 billion dollars.