“This week, Apple posted rosy third-quarter earnings highlighted by a 78 percent jump in profit to $3.25 billion from $1.8 billion a year ago. Revenue grew 61 percent to $15.7 billion, up from $9.7 billion last year,” Kaneshige reports. “‘Apple’s earnings growth was pretty darn impressive,’ says Gartner (IT) analyst Van Baker.”
“Apple’s quarter was driven on four fronts: Apple’s new iPad, Macs, iPhones as well as solid international sales,” Kaneshige reports. “Apple’s iPad has leapt out of the gate: Consumers gobbled up 3 million units in the first 80 days since its launch in April. It’s an entirely new product category with a sea of potential ahead of it. ‘Our guts tell us that this market is very large, and we believe that iPad is really defining it,’ noted Apple’s Cook.”
“One of the big surprises in Apple’s earnings report was the record-setting sales of Macs. Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, a 33 percent growth from the year prior, beating the 22 percent PC industry growth rate,” Kaneshige reports. “Of course, another hot Apple product is the iPhone. Apple sold 8.4 million units in the quarter, 61 percent more than the same quarter a year ago. Apple’s new iPhone 4 was on sale for only three days before the quarter ended, which means many of the iPhones sold were iPhone 3G or 3GS models. Due to the leaked prototypes of the iPhone 4 during the previous quarter, many people no doubt put off purchasing an iPhone. Which, again, makes the iPhone sales numbers astounding.”
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