The California-based tech powerhouse Apple has done it again, even in the midst of the global recession. Reporting on their financial results for the fiscal 2009 fourth quarter, Apple said it was their most profitable quarter ever with record Mac and iPhone sales.
For the quarter ending September 26, Apple posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion. This is higher compared to the revenue of $7.9 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion last year.
The company likewise reported a higher gross margin of 36.6 precent, a jump from the 34.7 percent last year. International sales were almost half (46 percent) of the quarter’s revenue. On its own, Asia-Pacific registered a 42 percent increase in the region.
For this quarter, Apple sold 3.05 million Macs for a 17 percent unit increase from last year. This broke the prior quarterly record by more than 400,000 units. Likewise, they sold a record 7.4 million iPhones or a climb of 7 percent unit growth. However, their iPods only sold 10.2 million or a slip of 8 percent.
Half of the iPod sales are reportedly first-buys with the iPod Touch sales up by 100 percent (thanks to Apple’s online App Store). Also, half of all Mac buyers were first-time Mac owners.
Due to the high demand of the iPhone, there was a reported low stock of the units for a few markets. However, their Mac portables had a very profitable quarter with Snow Leopard upgrades double.
Given the profitable news, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said they’re excited about the coming months: “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”
Apple is currently planning to sell their iPhones to China starting October and then later to the UK, to Canada and—hopefully—to South Korea. Though they would prefer to have exclusive iPhone relationships with carrier companies, Apple said there has been no lack of carrier companies wanting to sell iPhones in their countries.
Apple made the recent announcement of their Q4 2009 financial results via a QuickTime conference call using live audio and video streaming. (Joseph N)
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