Apple beats Street; reports best quarterly revenue and earnings in company history

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2008 first quarter ended December 29, 2007. The Company posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, or $1.76 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 34.7 percent, up from 31.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 45 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

MacDailyNews Note: Prior to Apple’s earnings release, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had estimated that Apple would earn revenue of $9.47 billion and $1.62 per share.

Apple shipped 2,319,000 Macintosh computers, representing 44 percent unit growth and 47 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 22,121,000 iPods during the quarter, representing five percent unit growth and 17 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 2,315,000.

“We’re thrilled to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Apple’s history,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in the press release. “We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks.”

“Apple’s revenue grew 35 percent year-over-year to $9.6 billion, an increase of almost $2.5 billion over the previous December quarter’s record-breaking results,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, in the press release. “Our strong results produced cash flow from operations of over $2.7 billion during the quarter, yielding an ending cash balance of over $18.4 billion. Looking ahead to the second quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $6.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $0.94.”

MacDailyNews Note: Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are looking for Apple to report Q2 08 revenue of $6.99 billion and earnings per share of $1.09. Historically, Apple’s guidance is notoriously conservative.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2008 financial results conference call utilizing QuickTime, Apple’s standards-based technology for live and on-demand audio and video streaming. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PST on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq108/ and will also be available for replay.

MacDailyNews Note: On October 22, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer provided guidance for first quarter of fiscal 2008, “We expect revenue of about $9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.42.”

37 Comments

  1. The price bottomed in the $135+ range and immediately bounced back up as the quick buyers took advantage of sellers who don’t know a good report when they see one.
    AAPL always sandbags on the future guidance. As long as they keep creaming analysts predictions, it’s an excellent long term investment on the dips

  2. Yes, too bad about Heath. And Suzanne Pleshette who die before she got her star on the Walk of Fame. And oh yes, sorry to the fans and family of Sam the Butcher (Allan Melvin). I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.

  3. Mr. Jobs, you could sell much more if you were not so focused on the US, 45% of the earning came from the rest of the world and your presence anywhere other than the UK is close to none. Imagine the possibilities if you had a really global, proper, presence. We want to give you our money! But we like, in fact demand, to be treated properly.

  4. Great revenue. This is only the beginning. Listen to Steve:

    “We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks.”

    Next year, around this time, Apple will be selling 5 millions Macs per quarter!!!!!!!!!!

  5. Apple is trading very slowly now in after-hours. I just listened to the conference call, and it seems that they underestimated Mac sales, so that inventories are below what they expect, 4 to 6 weeks worth, and so, the 2.3M Macs shipped could have been higher, if they had kept inventories stable.

    Also, the cash is up to $18.5B, and accumulated iPhone revenues are now up to $1.1B, since they count revenues over 8 quarters, as opposed to realizing it all at once.

    The gross margin of 34.7% is just sick! I remember when it bounced around between 27 and 29% for ages. Now, they’re modeling in a margin of 32% going forward. I guess NAND flash ram is going to stay cheap.

  6. The future is in Asia, Steve. India, China, South-East Asia and the rest. You gotta move way faster than you are now.

    As for AAPL dropping like flies, no worries – and i’ll be buying up more along the way! ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />

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