Apple’s Q2 08 earnings conference call transcript

Seeking Alpha has posted the entire transcript of Apple’s Q2 08 earnings conference call which includes comments from Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, including:

• We are very pleased to report the highest March quarter revenue and earnings in Apple’s history. Revenue in the March quarter was $7.51 billion, an increase of more than $2.2 billion over the previous March quarter’s revenue of $5.26 billion. The tremendous growth in the quarter was driven by very strong demand for Macs, higher revenue from iPod and iTunes and the continued popularity of the iPhone.

• We sold 10.6 million iPods, an increase of 1% from the year-ago quarter, and we experienced about the same seasonal rate of decline between the December and March quarters as we did last year. iPod revenue grew 8% year over year from higher ASPs in every geographic segment due to the success of the iPod Touch. We continue to be very pleased with customer response to the iPod Touch and believe the introduction of the software development kit in late June will broaden this appeal even further as great new applications are developed.

• Our share of the U.S. MP3 market was 73% according to the latest data published by NPD. Outside the U.S., we gained share in nearly every market we have data for based on the latest information from GFK and BCN.

• Sales from iTunes were very strong in the quarter and NPD reported that we have surpassed Wal-Mart to become the largest music retailer in the U.S. The iTunes store has over 50 million customers and over 85% share of the U.S. market for legally purchased and downloaded music based on the latest information from Nielsen Soundscan.

• We are very pleased with iPhone momentum and customer feedback continues to be outstanding. We remain confident in achieving our goal of selling 10 million iPhones in calendar 2008.

• I would now like to turn to the Apple retail stores which had another terrific quarter with revenue growing 74% year over year to $1.45 billion. The stores sold 458,000 Macs during the quarter, an increase of 67% year over year. We opened four stores during the quarter to end with 208. With an average of 205 stores opened during the quarter, average revenue per store was $7.1 million, compared to $4.8 million in the year-ago quarter, an increase of 48%. Operating profit doubled year over year to $334 million from $164 million. A primary objective in our stores has been helping people to get more out of their Macs and the stores delivered 580,000 one-hour personal training sessions during the quarter.

Much, much more in the full transcript here.