New record for Mac shipments

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 23 October 2007 06:18

IT Industry - Listed Tech

Apple set a new record for Mac shipments last quarter - a cool 2,164,000 units, blowing away the previous quarterly record by 400,000. The news comes shortly after market researchers at IDC rated the company as the number three PC vendor in the US.

In case that wasn't enough, Apple also reported the sale of 10.2 million iPods (17 percent up on the year-ago quarter) and 1,119,000 iPhones.

All this volume translated into $US6.2 billion revenue (up from $US4.84 billion a year ago) and net profit of $US904 million (vs $US542 million).

Despite all the fuss about iPods and iPhones, Mac products and services accounted for 62 percent of the quarter's revenue.

That said, 'other music revenue' (ie, music products and services excluding iPods - predominantly iTunes Store sales) was 33 percent up on the year-ago quarter. "Tunes continued to account for over 85% of songs purchased and downloaded in the U.S., according to the latest data available from Nielsen Soundscan, and iTunes customers have now purchased over 3 billion songs and 100 million TV shows," CFO Peter Oppenheimer told analysts.

"We are very pleased to have generated over $US24 billion in revenue and $US3.5 billion in net income in fiscal 2007," said CEO Steve Jobs. He thinks there's more good news to come: "We're looking forward to a strong December quarter as we enter the holiday season with Apple's best products ever."

Oppenheimer was more specific. "Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $US9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $US1.42."

Earnings per diluted share for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 were $US1.01.

Apple's share price rose $US3.94 to $176.36 on Monday, and a further $US11.99 to $US186.35 in after hours trading.