Apple has revealed record Mac sales and iPod sales leading the company to record Q4 profits, suggesting that the 'halo effect' is showing real results.
Remember when Michael Dell was asked what he'd do with Apple back in 1997 when the company was struggling? He said "
I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders". Well, Dell should be eating his words this morning as Apple announced its best ever September quarter in the company's history and soundly beat analyst forecasts, and its own guidance by around 20c per share. The most impressive stat revealed however, is the stunning growth of its Mac business.
Apple sold 817,000 desktops and 1,347,000 notebooks during the quarter and beat its previous record for any quarter by 400,000 Macs. What makes this number particularly impressive is the fact that Leopard, Apple's next release of OS X, is set for release this coming Friday and consumers traditionally withhold purchasing when a new OS is around the corner. Mac sales accounted for about fifty percent of company revenue. Apple Asia-Pacific accounted for 89,000 Mac sales and $310 million in revenue.
iPod sales accounted for twenty six percent of quarterly revenue with another 10.2 million iPods shipped - putting the total number of iPods shipped at over 120 million.
The most anticipated number for the earnings were related to the iPhone. Apple reported sales of 1.119 million iPhones for the quarter, and has now sold over 1.4 million since launch. As a comparison, Research in Motion, makers of the popular Blackberry device, shipped just over 3 million phones globally for the quarter. Apple is still only selling iPhones in the US, with a launch in Europe early next month. In a conference call with analysts Apple, reported it is confident in hitting its target of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008.
In a rare phone interview with New York Times reporter John Markoff, Steve Jobs said "The Macintosh has a lot of momentum now; it is outpacing the industry". Also, with OS X having an installed base of over 21 million active users, Leopard is set to be the biggest software release in Apple's history and sets Apple up nicely for the next quarter which is likely to be the biggest in the companies history.