Apple reports record US$26.7bn quarter and US$6bn profit

18 Jan 2011

With more than 16m iPhones and 7m iPads sold, Apple posted a record first quarter with record revenues of close to US$27bn, delivering the tech juggernaut a massive US$6bn profit.

The first quarter results delivered US$6.43 per diluted share.

These results compare to revenue of $15.68bn and net quarterly profit of US$3.38bn, or US$3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin was 38.5pc compared to 40.9pc in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62pc of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 4.13m Macs during the quarter, a 23pc unit increase over last year.

The company sold 16.24m iPhones in the quarter, representing 86pc unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

Apple sold 19.45m iPods during the quarter, representing a 7pc unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

The company also sold 7.33m iPads during the quarter.

‘Phenomenal’ Christmas quarter

“We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, who announced this week that he is taking medical leave for an undeclared period.

“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.”

Apple’s CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the business generated US$9.8bn in cash flow from operations during the December quarter.

“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about US$22bn and we expect diluted earnings per share of about US$4.90,” Oppenheimer said.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com