“Apple Inc’s profits and sales streaked past Wall Street forecasts as iPhone and Mac sales hit quarterly records, sending its shares rocketing to all-time highs on Monday,” Gabriel Madway reports for Reuters. “Sales of Mac computers — the largest single contributor to Apple’s revenue — jumped a better-than-foreseen 17 percent, but shipments of the closely watched iPhone were held back by problems in producing enough to meet demand, particularly abroad. ‘The big story is the renewed ascendancy of the Mac,’ said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at consulting firm Booz & Co.”
“IPhone sales had been expected to steal the limelight. Yet unit sales rose 7 percent to 7.4 million, just shy of Wall Street expectations of 7.5 million units. But it was the company’s venerable Mac warhorse, which has steadily expanded market share for years, that starred. The stellar shipment numbers came just days before rival Microsoft Corp was set to unveil its latest version of Windows operating system, to be followed a day later by its own quarterly results,” Madway reports. “Mac sales hit 3.05 million in the September quarter, above average estimate for about 2.8 million. Sales of laptop units alone leapt 35 percent, at a time the global PC market is stagnant.”
“‘These are huge numbers tonight. Apple is probably the best growth story in tech, maybe one of the best growth stocks in the market. I bet this stock can go to $250 in six to nine months,’ said Jane Snorek, analyst at First American Funds,” Madway reports. “‘This makes me think Apple will have a great Christmas.'”
“‘The number of Macs sold shows that Windows 7 has not been a threat to the Apple franchise,’ said Shannon Cross of Cross Research. ‘These are phenomenal results.’ …Shares of Apple jumped 7.5 percent to above $204 in extended trading. It had closed at $189.86 on Nasdaq. The stock’s record intraday high was $202.96 on December 27, 2007,” Madway reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: AAPL shares rose $12.54, or 6.60%, to $202.40 in after-hours trading. With 895,817,000 shares outstanding, Apple’s market value currently stands at $181,313,360,800.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]