“Apple on Wednesday announced its most profitable second quarter in company history, and held a financial conference call with analysts and members of the media,” AppleInsider reports. “Apple said second-quarter profits rose over 36 percent to $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, on sales of $7.51 billion for the three-month period ended March 29, 2008.”

AppleInsider provides several notes of interest from the now concluded call, including:
• Regional business segments
• Mac business
• Apple TV and iPhone businesses
• Retail business
• iPod and iTunes businesses
• The financial side of Q2
• Looking ahead to Q3

Full article here.

Agam Shah reports for Computerworld UK, “The company is excited about new products in the pipeline, said chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer during a call to discuss the results. When asked about the possible release of a 3G iPhone, Apple executives declined comment.”

“Unlocked phones are being used in a number of countries where carriers don’t yet offer iPhones, which indicates strong worldwide demand for the phone, Cook said. Apple plans to introduce the iPhone into more countries in Europe and Asia-Pacific later this year,” Shah reports.

“Apple remains confident in reaching its goal of selling 10 million iPhones in calendar 2008, Oppenheimer said. That forecast covers only phones activated with carriers. The company plans to deliver iPhone 2.0 software as a free download in late June… The SDK has already been downloaded 200,000 times and is being used in one-third of the Fortune 500 companies to develop applications for the iPhone, Oppenheimer said,” Shah reports.

“Apple shipped 1.34 million portable Macs during the quarter, which includes MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. The growth in portable Macs was driven by strong demand in the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, Apple officials said,” Shah reports. “The MacBook Air, which was announced this quarter, sold well too, Cook said.”

“The MacBook Air appealed to a large audience and didn’t eat into sales of Apple’s other portable Mac lines, Cook said. Revenue from portable Macs was $2.04 billion for the quarter,” Shah reports. “Apple shipped 977,000 desktop Macs during the quarter. Overall Mac shipments grew 52 percent year-over-year in the US and 48 percent in Europe, Cook said.”

More in the full article here.