Apple Sells 7m iPads Over The Holidays For Record Earnings

If you were wondering just how huge the iPad was this holiday, the answer is very. Apple sold 7.33 million tablets last quarter on the way to a record profit of $US6 billion. And we haven’t even mentioned the iPhones.

In the company’s last quarter of selling the iPhone through a single US carrier, Apple sold a whopping 16.24 million handsets. That’s an 86 per cent increase over a year ago; Apple now sells nearly as many iPhones as iPods (19.45 million). The Mac business also grew, though not by quite so lofty a margin; the 4.13 Macs Apple sold in its last fiscal quarter represents a 23 per cent increase over last year.

Record profit and sales was unsurprisingly matched by record revenue, which at $US26.74 billion nearly doubles last year’s mark of $US15.68 billion.

The earnings release didn’t shed any more light on the condition of Steve Jobs or sales of Apple TV, and I’m looking forward to seeing if Apple has any comment on their modestly flagging (down 7 per cent year-over-year) iPod business. We’ll be listening in to the company’s earnings conference call at 5pm EST (9am AEDT) to see if any details spill out.

Record Mac, iPhone, iPad Sales Drive Highest Revenue and Earnings Ever

Revenue Grows 71 Percent; Earnings Grow 78 Percent

CUPERTINO, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 first quarter ended December 25, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $US26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $US6 billion, or $US6.43 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $US15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $US3.38 billion, or $US3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.5 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $US22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $US4.90.”

Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter.

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We are firing on all cylinders and we’ve got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year including iPhone 4 on Verizon which customers can’t wait to get their hands on.”

“We couldn’t be happier with the performance of our business, generating $US9.8 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $US22 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $US4.90.”


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