Stephen Withers
Thursday, 22 January 2009 08:52
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Apple has again booked record quarterly revenue and profits. Revenue for its first quarter of fiscal 2009 exceeded $US10 billion.
Apple's results for the quarter ended December 27, 2008, show solid growth in terms of dollars and units.
Mac sales were up 9 percent year-on-year to 2,524,000. Not too shabby, especially when you accept that the economic downturn was already underway during the quarter.
Naturally, the big increase was in iPhone sales - a massive 88 percent leap to 4,363,000. Given the much wider distribution of the iPhone 3G compared with the original model, that should come as no surprise.
But it is a big dip on the previous quarter, in which Apple sold 6,892,000 iPhones. The obvious explanation is that there was an initial surge when the 3G model went on sale in July, and things tapered off after that.
iPod sales recorded relatively modest growth of just three percent year-on-year. Still, selling nearly 22 million units is not to be sniffed at.
It was almost double the previous quarter's sales, showing the iPod was still a popular Christmas present.
And if you accept that some iPhone purchases cannibalise iPod sales, Apple's music and video player business improved more than the raw figures suggest.
So what about the money? Please
read on.
