Monday, 30 July 2007

Apple Posts USD 818 Million for Q3, Strong Growth of Mac & iPod

Apple posted its third quarter results Wednesday announcing net revenue of USD 5.41 billion and a quarterly profit of USD 818 million, up from USD 472 million from a year ago.The Cupertino, California IT peripherals giant attributed its growth to the strong sales of its Macs and iPods...

Apple posted its third quarter results Wednesday announcing net revenue of USD 5.41 billion and a quarterly profit of USD 818 million, up from USD 472 million from a year ago.

The Cupertino, California IT peripherals giant attributed its growth to the strong sales of its Macs and iPods.

Apple shipped 1,764,000 Macintosh computers, representing 33 percent growth over the year-ago quarter and exceeding the previous company record for quarterly Mac shipments by over 150,000. 9,815,000 iPods were sold during the quarter, representing 21 percent growth over the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled to report the highest June quarter revenue and profit in Apple’s history, along with the highest quarterly Mac sales ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

“We are very pleased to report strong financial results including cash flow from operations exceeding .2 billion for the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.

International sales accounted for 40 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

However, much anxiety was caused when sales of the iPhone fell short from expectation. Opening weekend sales of the recently unveiled and much raved about iPhone was estimated to be around 500,000 by analysts but only a reported 270,000 were sold and only 146,000 of those have been activated so far.

Apple has alleviated concerns by stating that its primary focus is not on initial sales but on creating a third business and reiterated its goal of hitting the 10 millionth iPhone sales mark by the end of 2008.

“iPhone is off to a great start—we hope to sell our one-millionth iPhone by the end of its first full quarter of sales—and our new product pipeline is very strong,” commented Jobs.

“Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2007, we expect revenue of about .7 billion and earnings per diluted share of about .65,” said Oppenheimer.