Another strong quarter for Apple

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 06:16

Opinion and Analysis

Apple has reported strong results: the company's fiscal third quarter 2009 was its best-ever non-holiday period.

With revenue of $US8.34 billion and net profit of $US1.23 billion, Apple's been making hay while the economic sun wasn't shining.

As for unit sales, the company sold 2.6 million Macs (four percent up on the year-ago period), 10.2 million iPods (down seven percent), and 5.2 million iPhones (up 626 percent).

Since Mac sales were down three percent year-on-year during the second fiscal quarter (January-March), the recovery is particularly impressive, especially during a period where consumers still seem to be reluctant to spend and are supposedly concentrating on 'value' (ie, low prices).

The drop in iPod sales could be seen as a concern, but they do tend to be seasonal. In addition, there is almost certainly a degree of substitution of iPhones for iPods.

"We're making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding," said CEO Steve Jobs.

"We're thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year."

Apple uses subscription accounting for iPhone and Apple TV sales. If these products were accounted for in the same way as the company's other products, it estimates that sales would have been $US9.74 billion with net income of $US1.94 billion.

Apple's results were slightly ahead of analysts' revenue and profit predictions.