You just can’t ignore a US$13.06 billion profit.
Per Macworld, Apple on Tuesday reported that it tallied US$46.33 billion in sales and US$13.06 billion in profit for the fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31.
Both the revenue and profit figures were quarterly records for Apple and blew away the numbers recorded in the year-ago quarter. Sales rose 73 percent from last year’s figure of US$26.74 billion; profits more than doubled from the US$6 billion earned in the fiscal first quarter of 2011.
Apple earned US$13.87 per share for the just-completed quarter, up 116 percent from last year. That handily beat consensus analyst estimates of US$10.08 per share. Analysts were expecting Apple’s sales to come in at US$38.85 billion.
“We are very proud of these results and extremely pleased with the momentum of our business,” Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts during a conference call to discuss the company’s results. Noting the record sales across three of its major product offerings, Oppenheimer hailed what he called the “strongest product lineup in Apple’s history.”
Apple’s strong performance during the quarter comes with a minor caveat. To align the fiscal first quarter with the end of the calendar year, Apple’s quarter ran 14 weeks—that’s an extra week over the typical fiscal quarter.
The company sold 37.04 million phones during a quarter which saw the release of the iPhone 4S. That’s a 128 percent jump from the iPhones sold during the year-ago quarter, and it tops the previous record for iPhone sales of 20.34 million units sold during 2011’s third quarter.
Apple reported US$24.4 billion in recognized revenue from its iPhone product line, up from US$10.5 billion in the year ago. While Apple doesn’t break out sales by model, Cook noted that the 4S was the most popular of the smartphones sold by Apple. (The company also sells a US$99 iPhone 4 and offers a free iPhone 3GS with a two-year service agreement.)
The iPad also enjoyed record sales during the quarter, with Apple selling 15.4 million tablets. That’s an increase of nearly 111 percent from the 7.3 million iPads sold during the year-ago quater.
Recognized revenue from the iPad line jumped 99 percent to US$9.1 billion, up from US$4.6 billion in last year’s quarter.
Since releasing its first iPad a little less than two years ago, Apple has sold 55 million tablets, according to Cook.
Looking at all products that run the iOS mobile operating system, Apple says it’s sold 315 million cumulative iOS devices, with 62 million of those devices being sold in the just-completed quarter.
One of those iOS devices—the iPod touch—accounted for more than half of the iPods sold by Apple during the holiday season. That’s a bright spot in the otherwise stagnant iPod segment—sales dipped 21 percent for the quarter to 15.4 million units.
Still, Apple says that the iPod still continues to command a 70 percent share of the MP3 player market, and its music player remains the top-selling device in most of the countries the company monitors.
Apple completed its hat trick of product line records by selling more Macs during the first quarter than in any previous quarter. The company says it sold 5.2 million Macs, a 26 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer said the growth was driven by strong MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac sales
Sales of both desktops and laptop topped quarterly records as well, though laptops continue to drive the company’s Mac business. Apple sold 3.7 million portables during the quarter, nearly 72 percent of the total Macs sold.
The strong Mac sales come at a time when the rest of the PC industry is struggling with stagnant growth. Oppenheimer noted that research firm IDC forecasted a flat growth rate for the quarter—a figure that Apple easily outpaced. It’s the 20th consecutive quarter that Apple’s Mac business had outgrown the overall PC market.
In fact, Apple outgrew the PC market in each of the geographic regions it does business. Growth was particularly strong in the Asia Pacific region, where Mac sales grew 58 percent.
On the retail front, Apple’s 361 stores brought in US$6.1 billion in revenue for the quarter, up from US$3.85 billion last year. The stores reported strong year-over-year growth across all product lines—Apple sold 1.1 million Macs through its retail stores, for example, with half of those going to customers new to the platform. Average store revenue rose from US$12 million last year to US$17.1 million.
Apple says 110 million people visited its stores during the holiday quarter, an increase of 45 percent from last year. That works out to a weekly average of 22,000 visitors per store. Oppenheimer credited two initiatives—Apple’s EasyPay self-checkout process and Personal Pickup, where customers shop online and pick up products at the store of their choice.
Apple opened four stores during the quarter—one in New York’s Grand Central station and the other three in Europe. Oppenheimer usually provides an estimate of planned store openings for the coming quarter, but that was absent this time around. In September, Apple said it would open 40 new stores in 2012 with three-quarters of those slated for outside the
U.S.
Apple ended its first quarter with US$97.6 billion in cash, up from US$81.6 billion at the end of the September quarter. Oppenheimer said that Apple was “actively discussing uses of our cash balance,” but added that there was nothing to share at this time.
Looking ahead to the second quarter ending in March, Oppenheimer told analysts to expect $32.5 billion in revenue and earnings per share of US$8.50. That compares to revenue of US$24.67 billion and earnings of US$6.40 a share in the 2011 second quarter. Analysts are looking for earnings of US$8.03 a share on sales of US$32.04 billion.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.