Apple has announced revenue of US$5.26bn with net quarterly profits of US$770m for the March quarter, up 88pc on March 2006.
“We are very pleased to report the most profitable March quarter in Apple’s history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple. Oppenheimer said this was an increase of 21pc over the prior March quarter’s results.
He said for the third quarter of 2007, Apple predicts revenue of around US$5.1bon
“The Mac is clearly gaining market share, with sales growing 36pc, more than three times the industry growth rate,” said CEO of Apple Steve Jobs.
During this second quarter of 2007, Apple shipped 1.5 million Mac computers and 10.5 million iPods. This was a sales growth of 36pc for the Macs and 24pc for the iPod compared with the second quarter of 2006.
According to Oppenheimer, this increase was three times the estimated industry growth rate projected by researcher IDC for the March quarter. Sales of Mac notebooks alone grew 79pc year over year over the quarter and accounted for 59pc of total Macs sold.
Apple’s music products and services made up 44pc of total revenue during the quarter. Oppenheimer said that the new iPod shuffle, which was relased in January of this year, was especially popular but failed to give a breakdown of actual sales results for this product alone.
In the US, the iPod has over 70pc of the digital media player market share, while it has over 40pc market share in Britain, Denmark and Switzerland, with only 28pc in Germany.
Other music revenue, outside iPod sales, grew 35pc, strongly supported by the iTunes store sales, which has a catalogue of over five million songs and 500 movies at present.
Based on the latest data from Nielsen SoundScan, iTunes stores accounts for over 85pc of music downloaded and purchased on the internet, said Oppenheimer.
By Marie Boran
