Apple Posts Record Sales, Profit

By Steve Smith -- TWICE, 1/18/2011

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple reported record revenue and net profit for its fiscal first quarter, ended Dec. 25.

Apple had revenue of $26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $6 billion.

These results compare with revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38.5 percent compared with 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter, and international sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter's revenue.

Apple sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter; 4.13 million Macs, a 23-percent increase over the prior year's fiscal first quarter; 16.24 million iPhones, a whopping 86 percent jump in unit growth; and 19.45 million iPods, a 7 percent unit sales increase, also compared with the prior year's fiscal first quarter.

 "We had a phenomenal holiday quarter with record Mac, iPhone and iPad sales," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, in a prepared statement. "We are firing on all cylinders and we've got some exciting things in the pipeline for this year, including iPhone 4 on Verizon, which customers can't wait to get their hands on."

Still, shares of Apple fell 3 percent prior to the release of the fiscal first-quarter report, based on news released yesterday that Jobs would take another leave from the company due to medical reasons.