Apple outperforms

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 23 April 2009 06:09

Business IT - Technology

Despite reports of sliding Mac market share, Apple has outperformed the guidance numbers provided to financial markets and recorded its best-ever second quarter results.

Back in January, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer told investors to expect second quarter revenues around $US7.6 to $US8 billion, and earnings per share between $US0.90 and $US1.00.

Various research firms have noted a decline in Apple's retail market share in the US, though at least one analyst reported that activity in Apple Stores seemed to be holding up.

Now the second quarter figures are out. Apple achieved revenues of $US8.16 billion, and EPS of $1.33.

Apple always does well in its first quarter, thanks to the effect of Christmas and other seasonal gift shopping, and so the second quarter looks bad by comparison.

And 1Q09 was particularly good for Apple, with revenue exceeding $US10 million for the first time. But 2Q09 was the best-ever non-holiday quarter in the company's history.

So while 'only' 11.01 million iPods were sold in 2Q09 compared with the record 22.72 million in 1Q09, that's still 3 percent up on 2Q08.

Similarly, iPhone sales went from 4.36 million in 1Q09 to 3.79 million in 2Q09, the year-on-year increase was 123 percent compared with 88 percent in 1Q09.

These huge increases are largely due to the introduction of the iPhone 3G and the resulting growth in the number of countries where the handset is sold.

Now read on for the bad news.