“Apple Computer Inc.’s fourth-quarter profit more than doubled, beating analysts’ estimates, as surging sales of iPod digital music players drove revenue to its highest for the period in nine years,” Bloomberg reports. “Net income rose to $106 million, or 26 cents a share, from $44 million, or 12 cents, a year earlier, Cupertino, California- based Apple said in a statement. Sales rose 37 percent to $2.35 billion. IPod shipments increased fivefold to 2.02 million.”
“Sales and profit this quarter will also beat analysts’ expectations as consumers snap up iPods and iMac computers for the holiday season, Apple said. Demand for the iPod music player, unveiled by Chief Executive Steve Jobs in October 2001, helped Apple become the third-best performing stock in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index this year,” Bloomberg reports. “‘It’s shocking. I’m shocked, even being a bull,’ said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. He rates the shares ‘outperform’ and said he doesn’t own them. ‘Now I wish I had been even more bullish.'”
“‘The iPod is getting more and more people into their brands,’ said Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates in Reno, Nevada, before the report. The firm has $2.6 billion in assets, including 700,000 Apple shares. ‘It’s broadening out into computer sales. It’s just not digital music anymore,'” Bloomberg reports.
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