Apple sales top $20 billion - a new record

[johannes]

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Apple's wildly popular gadget lineup propelled the company to a new all-time sales record of $20 billion, Apple said Monday as it announced its fourth-quarter results.

Calling himself "blown away" by the results, Apple CEO Steve Jobs promised more magic to come: "We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year."

The company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, which represents a 91% increase from this time last year and easily topped even the most bullish estimates from Wall Street analysts.

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that the company would have sold even more had it been able to keep up with demand. Online, iPhone 4s have been on backorder since the device debuted in July. When pressed by an analyst about Apple's supply chain snags, Cook responded that the manufacturing issues have been mostly solved.

Apple sold 3.9 million Macintosh computers, which was up 27% over the previous quarter and also topped most estimates. The company also sold 250,000 Apple TV devices.

But Apple disappointed investors by selling just 4.2 million iPads in the quarter, up from 3.3 million tablets in the previous quarter. Apple said more than $2.7 billion of its sales, or 13% of its quarterly revenue, came from iPad sales -- a revenue stream that didn't exist just six months ago. But the sales came up short of the roughly 5 million that most analysts had anticipated...

... Jobs was also pressed by investors about Apple's giant cash stash, which is closing in on $40 billion. One analyst inquired whether Apple would ever do share buybacks or pay a dividend, but Jobs said the company is happy to hang onto its cash in case it makes a mistake or a strategic opportunity comes along.

The company has a press event scheduled for Wednesday to preview the next version of its Mac operating system.

For the full CNNMoney article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/18/tech...dex.htm?hpt=T2

[john edward]

excellent. wish it was easier buying the stock from the phil.

[quobetah]

The ipods should pick up this quarter.

[hearsay]

Bravo! More incentive for Apple to come out with more innovative products

Good year to be an Apple Fanboy

[Sir iAco]

Apple: In Depth Analysis for the September 2010 Quarter

by: Neil Carvin October 19, 2010 | about: AAPL

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) earned $4.64 per diluted share in fiscal 2010's fourth quarter, which ended on 25 September. Earnings per share were nearly 70 percent more than the $2.77 Apple made in the same quarter of 2009.



This post examines Apple's Income Statement for the latest quarter. We did not issue "look-ahead" estimates because well-researched projections are available from a host of analysts.

The principal sources for this income statement analysis were the earnings announcement, the accompanying data sheet, and the conference call with analysts (transcript made available by Seeking Alpha).

In a second article, we will report Apple's scores as measured by the GCFR financial gauges. The follow-up post will also provide the latest figures for the various financial metrics we use to analyze Cash Management, Growth, Profitability and Value.

Before getting into the details, we will take a step back to introduce the subject of today's analysis.

Apple Inc. has been recognized by Fortune as the world's most admired company for the last three years. It is known for elegant product design, innovation, customer loyalty, secrecy, and the cult-like status afforded CEO (and savior) Steve Jobs.

It sells Macintosh® desktop and laptop computers, iPhone™ portable devices, iPad tablet computers, iPod® music and video players, operating system software (including OS X and iOS), software applications and Apps, digital entertainment, and various accessories.



Apple sold 7.5 million iPads in the six months after the product's launch date on 3 April 2010.

News reports indicate that Apple in 2011 will start selling iPhones that will work on Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) network. iPhones in the U.S. have always been marketed in conjunction with AT&T (NYSE: T).

The "A4" computer chips that run the iPhone, iPad, and some other products are based on the low-power ARM architecture, but the design was customized by Apple. Samsung (SEO: 005930) manufactures these chips.

Apple's products are sold online and through the company's chic retail stores. Digital content is made available through the iTunes Store®, as well as iPhone and iPad Apps stores.

For fiscal 2009, which ended one year ago, Apple earned $8.2 billion on sales of $42.9 billion. The comparable figures for fiscal 2008 were earnings of $6.1 billion and sales of $37.5 billion.



A soaring stock price has elevated Apple's market value towards $300 billion, making Apple the second-most valuable U.S. company.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2010, Apple revised how it accounts for sales of the iPhone™ (and the less important Apple TV). This change, which complies with the latest standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, enables Apple to recognize "substantially all" iPhone and Apple TV Revenue in the period that sales to consumers took place. Apple had been required to recognize Revenue from these products over each product's two-year estimated economic life. The "subscription accounting" method resulted in substantial amounts of deferred Revenue and costs. Apple, when it made the change, restated earlier results to conform to current accounting principles.

Please click here to see a full-sized, normalized depiction of the actual results for the just-concluded quarter, as well as the restated quarterly Income Statements for the last couple of years. Please note that our organization of revenues, expenses, gains, and losses, which we use for all analyses, can and often does differ in material respects from company-used formats. The standardization facilitates cross-company comparisons.

As has often been the case recently, Apple's Revenue of $20.3 billion far surpassed Apple's $18.0 billion guidance. The reported amount, a record high Revenue figure for Apple, was 67 percent greater than Revenue of $12.2 billion in the September 2009 quarter.

Read more:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2307...r?source=yahoo

[elbert]

Oct 13 2010 4:27pm EDT
It's an Apple Economy Now

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs...#ixzz12p0QVwzR

It's Apple's economy now. Shares of the company broke $300 this morning—and hung on to close at $300.14, to be exact.

Apple now has market share of $274.2 billion—making it worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined—with a good chunk of HP thrown in as a kicker. Yes. it's worth more than Google, which has a valuation of $173 billion. And it is nearly nine times as valuable as Facebook, which is reportedly valued at $33 billion in the private market.

This is all the more remarkable because Apple was trading in the $80 range as early as March 2009. Attribute much of the increase to the public's (and the media's) embrace of all things "i"—the iPhone, the iTouch, and the iPad.

It's even more remarkable because Apple fired Steve Jobs in 1985 when the company appeared to be flirting with death, a decision for which Oracle CEO Larry Ellison lambasted the "idiots" of the Apple board. Jobs returned to helm the company he created in 1996.

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs...#ixzz12p0DJOrQ

In other words, Apple ranks in the top 20 economies of the world. It's actually bigger than Switzerland!

[quobetah]

In other words, Apple ranks in the top 20 economies of the world. It's actually bigger than Switzerland!

Switzerland should definitely be their next acquisition.

[global]

I am proud to have contributed to Apple's success.

[Sir iAco]

Apple bug vs. gold bug

CoM Discusses, Is It Better to Invest in Apple or Gold?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/3ifrXlloH9s
...
More than anything, Apple isn’t just a company, it’s a lifestyle. That’s sounds ridiculous to outsiders, but it’s true. You buy a Mac or an iPhone because it’s a great product, but it also makes you feel special. People self identify with the brands they consume, and Apple has what every company out there is trying to get: Brand Devotion. With Steve at the reigns of Apple that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Steve Jobs has become an amazingly talented salesman who also has some really great products.Perhaps Gold is a better long-term investment (ie 10-20 years), but it’s undeniable that Apple will continue to post record-breaking numbers, and thus earn their stockholders more in the next three to five years than that of Gold investors.

Read more:
http://www.cultofmac.com/cult-of-mac...e-debate/65486

[MacKen]

Wow, impressive feat indeed, wonder how much I contributed to that milestone