Apple has just released its quarterly earnings report, and many of the figures are, somewhat predictably, the company’s highest to date.
The main protagonist was the iPad 2 in terms of sales for the three months prior to the close of the fiscal fourth quarter, which fell on September 24. The company’s sophomore tablet device, which launched in March, shifted 11.12 million units during the quarter, which equates to a mightily impressive 166% increase on the same time last year. Not bad for a device billed by the skeptics as merely a large iPhone bereft of the phone function.
17.07 million iPhones were shifted, the majority of which were obviously iPhone 4s, although the 3GS still shifted plenty despite having been released in 2009. It says a lot about a device and a company as a whole when tens of millions are still willing to purchase a device despite it being 1-2 years old.
Aside from the iOS devices, Apple sold 4.89 million Macs, up one quarter on the stats released a year ago. OS X Lion, the company’s latest operating system and the first to be released as download-only, played a part in the success of the Mac.
The only product to decrease in sales on last year’s earnings call was the iPod in its various forms, which saw 6.62 million units sold – down 27 percent on the year-ago quarter. The iPod must take a huge amount of credit for paving the path of the iOS devices, and the increasing popularity of the Mac. Unfortunately for the iPod, with the iPhone and iPad allowing consumers to download music on-the-fly, it was always inevitable that the iconic iPod would end up taking the back seat, and its demise looks set to continue in years to come as less consumers seek a separate entity for their musical requirements.
As a company, the impressive unit sales contributed to $28.27 billion quarterly revenue and a $6.62 billion net profit, equating to $7.05 per diluted share. Comparatively, in 2010, the Q4 earnings call revealed $20.34 billion of net revenue alongside a $4.31 billion profit, or $4.64 per diluted share.
These figures don’t even take into account the raging success of the iPhone 4S, which, last we heard, had sold 4 million units since last Friday’s launch, was selling at 16 units per second and on course to become the fastest selling gadget of all time by the end of the week – despite not having been launched in much of the world.
You can watch the earnings call in its entirety on Apple’s website.
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