Apple has reaped a US$4.3bn profit on fourth-quarter revenues of US$20.34bn after smashing previous records in the numbers of iPhones, iPads and MacBook devices.
These results compare to revenue of US$12.21bn and net quarterly profit of US$2.53bn in the fourth quarter last year.
Gross margin was 36.9pc compared to 41.8pc in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 57pc of the quarter’s revenue.
Blown away
“We are blown away to report over US$20bn in revenue and over US$4bn in after-tax earnings — both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
“iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91pc year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”
One of these surprises could be a new format 11.6-inch MacBook Air expected to be announced this week.
Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27pc unit increase over the year-ago quarter.
The company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91pc unit growth over the year-ago quarter.
Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11pc unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
The company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter.
“We’re thrilled with the performance and strength of our business, generating almost US$5.7bn in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.
“Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about US$23bn and we expect diluted earnings per share of about US$4.80.”
