Apple Inc reported a rare miss in quarterly results after sales of its flagship iPhone fell well short of Wall Street expectations, hammering its shares.

Shares of the world's most valuable technology corporation dived more than 5 percent to below $400 after it said it sold 17.07 million iPhones -- well short of the roughly 20 million expected by analysts.

The September quarterly report was Apple's first under new Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over in August after co-founder Steve Jobs resigned. The company lost its leading visionary and co-founder when he died October 5.

Apple said its revenue rose to $28.27 billion but that was also lower than the average analyst estimate of $29.69 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company reported a net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 a share. That fell shy of expectations for earnings of $7.39 per share.

It sold 11.12 million iPad tablets and 4.89 million Macs in the September quarter.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan; Editing by Gary Hill)

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