Apple stuns Street with massive $46.33 billion record revenue; all-time record Mac, iPhone, iPad sales

Brace yourselves. This one’s a biggie:

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”

Trading in AAPL shares has been halted in after-hours trading. Apple shares to resume trading at 4:50pm ET.

Apple will provide live streaming of its Q1 2012 financial results conference call beginning at 5:00pm ET which MacDailyNews will cover with live notes. Check our home page at 4:55-ish for the live conference call coverage.

According Thompson Financial, the analysts’ consensus called for $38.85 billion in revenue and $10.08 EPS.

On October 18, 2011, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, gave Q112 guidance of “revenue of about $37 billion” and “diluted earnings per share of about $9.30.”

MacDailyNews Take: Boom!

90 Comments

  1. I am glad I was super wrong about iPhone sales.

    Older, first world markets got much bigger sales than I expected. If only iPhone 4S would be selling everywhere in the Q4 total quantity of sales could be like 45 million or something.

    Apple is officially #1 smartphones seller in the world, bigger than Samsung. Lets see if media will pay respect to that since they already love so much the idea that Samsung is the leader, even though they stopped reporting their smartphones sales after Q2 of last year.

    1. Apple is also officially #1 electronics company in the world — even bigger than Samsung, which sells everything including irons and washing machines in that department.

      Samsung got about $40 billion revenue in Q4.

      1. No matter how many smartphones Samsung sold, I’ll bet Samsung did not even make 1/4 the profit per unit compared to Apple’s iPhone. That’s the real story here.

        Gross margin of 44.7 percent… That’s for everything, so the profit margin on iPhones may have been in excess of 60 percent.

      2. Samsung does not report smart phones sold. They report handsets SHIPPED. They don’t even report the break out of handsets. This is what Samsung said officially last quarter. Samsung might have SHIPPED 35 million handsets which include dumb and smart phones.

      3. I think actual sales wee higher, since Apple ran down inventory in the channel during the quarter. The number they report is the shipment number, but I think I heard them say actual sell-thru was higher.

    1. I totally agree. The media has not been kind to Apple over the years. As a media employee, former executive, for over 30 years I have seen first hand WinDoze makes up over 90% of computers reporters and editors use on a daily basis. For many reasons, not surprised the newspaper industry is in decline …

    2. Try Paul Thurrott

      http://www.winsupersite.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/apple-blows-doors-spectacular-quarter-142022

      That guy always gives faint praise amongst the snide remarks about anything Apple.

      Take this for example:
      “Apple sold an astonishing 37 million iPhones in the quarter, which is all the more impressive when you consider that the iPhone 4S, which launched in the quarter, is visually identical to its predecessor, and a design that is now over 18 months old.”

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