“Riding a wave of consumer enthusiasm for its hand-held iPhone smartphones, Apple reported strong fiscal fourth-quarter profits that outpaced Wall Street’s expectation,” John Markoff reports for The New York Times.
“Analysts think of Apple as a bellwether of the consumer electronics industry that should be showing early effects of a slowing consumer economy. The company said Tuesday, however, that any slowdown that it detected late in the quarter ended Sept. 30 might just as well have been caused by customers who were choosing to delay purchases for the new Macintosh portables that were introduced last week,” Markoff reports.
“Apple had strong sales in all of its major product lines. It also said that it had sold more iPhones in the quarter than it had since the smartphone was introduced in June of last year,” Markoff reports. Apple is “quickly becoming a dominant force in the cellphone industry, even against cellphone makers, like Research in Motion, that cater to corporations. “Apple outsold R.I.M. last quarter,” [Apple CEO Steve Jobs] said.
“Apple sold about 6.9 million of its iPhone 3G units in its fourth quarter, compared with 6.1 million cellphones for R.I.M., [Jobs] said. Apple has already surpassed its goal of selling 10 million iPhones during 2008,” Markoff reports. “‘This company is on a roll and a very consistent one, where they are gaining market share at two to three times the rate of the PC industry,’ said Charles Wolf, a financial analyst at Needham & Company.”
More in the full article here.
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