Blazing a hot trail into its fiscal New Year, healthy sales of iPod digital music players and PowerBook notebook computers helped Apple Computer post a 36 percent jump in revenue, to $2 billion — a four-year high — compared with $1.5 billion in the first three months last year.
Apple also moved into the black during its first quarter, ended Dec. 27, recording a net profit of $63 million, compared with a net loss of $8 million in the year-ago period. The quarter’s results include an after-tax gain of $3 million, while gross margin remained fairly constant, down to 26.7, from 27.6 in the same period a year earlier.
In the quarter, iPod revenue soared 216 percent, hitting $256 million, up from $81 million in the same three months a year ago. Unit movement jumped 235 percent, to 733,000, up from 219,000 year-on-year. PowerBook revenue reached $399 million in the first quarter, a 70 percent increase over the $235 million posted last year in the same quarter. PowerBook unit movement increased 93 percent, to 195,000 in the first quarter, compared with 101,000 year-over-year.
“It was an outstanding quarter for Apple,” said CEO Steve Jobs, “with double-digit unit and revenue growth.” Total Macintosh revenue in the first quarter hit $1.3 billion, a 15 percent increase over the $1.1 billion recorded in the same period last year. Macintosh unit sales reached 829,000 during the quarter, a 12 percent rise over the 743,000 units shipped in the same period in 2002.
Revenue in the Americas climbed 25 percent in the first three months, to $924 million, up from $738 million year-on-year, a 25 percent increase. However, unit shipments in the Americas were flat in the quarter, at about 378,000. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
