Strong sales of iPhones and notebook computers helped Apple post nearly $10 billion in revenue in its fiscal fourth quarter, the company reported today, blowing through Wall Street's targets.
But, as it often does, the company offered guidance for its coming quarter that was below Wall Street's targets.
In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the iPhone maker earned $1.67 billion, or $1.82 a share. Those results were up from its fourth quarter a year earlier, when Apple earned $1.14 billion, or $1.26 a share.
The company's sales jumped 25 percent year-over-year to $9.87 billion. That represented the second largest total quarterly sales Apple has ever posted, following its holiday quarter last year.
Analysts polled by Thomson First Call had expected the company to earn $1.42 a share on sales of $9.2 billion.
"We are delighted with our September quarter and fiscal 2009 results," Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in a statement.
The report also appeared to delight Apple investors. In recent after-hours trading, the company's stock was up $9.46 a share, or about 5 percent, to $199.32.
Despite the standout results, Apple tried to cool the Street's expectations for the holiday season. Oppenheimer forecast that Apple would earn $1.70 to $1.78 a share in its first quarter on sales ranging from $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion.
Wall Street analysts had previously predicted that Apple would earn $1.91 a share in
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the current period on $11.45 billion in sales.
The company's stock closed regular trading Monday up $1.81, or about 1 percent, to $189.86 a share.
The standout product for the period was Apple's notebooks. The company sold 2.3 million laptops in the period, which was up 35 percent from the same period a year earlier and marked a quarterly record for the company. The company garnered $2.87 billion from such sales, which was up 27 percent from the fourth quarter of last year.
Apple has been criticized for generally charging more for its computers than other companies and for not offering a netbook, the newer, smaller laptops that tend to cost less than $500. The company still doesn't have a netbook, but when it revamped its notebook line in June it cut prices across the board and added new features.
Overall, Apple sold 3.05 million Macintosh computers, the most ever in a single quarter. The company's sales were boosted by its release of Snow Leopard, which is the latest update to its Macintosh operating system; an order for 50,000 computers placed by the state of Maine; and from what company offcials said was Apple's strongest back-to-school selling season ever.
The company's iPhone line also performed well in the quarter. Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in its fourth quarter. That was up 7 percent from the same period a year earlier.
That may not seem like a lot at first glance, but this year's quarter didn't include the more than 1 million units of the iPhone 3GS Apple sold in the first 9 days of sales, because they occurred in the previous quarter. In contrast, last year Apple launched the iPhone 3G in July, meaning all of its initial sales took place in the company's fourth quarter.
Perhaps more tellingly, the number of iPhones Apple sold in the most recent quarter were up 41 percent from its third quarter. And the revenue it raised from such sales hit $2.3 billion, which was up 185 percent from the year-ago period and 36 percent from the third quarter.
Still, the quarter wasn't perfect. Apple's iPod results seemed to indicate that the market for MP3 music players is becoming saturated. The company sold 10.2 million iPods in the period, which was down 8 percent from the same period a year ago. Those products generated $1.56 billion in revenue, which was down 6 percent from the prior quarter.
Meanwhile, Apple's results benefitted from a stronger than typical portion of sales coming from overseas. Those overseas sales, which accounted for 46 percent of Apple's total revenue, helped lower the company's effective tax rate to 26 percent.
Had Apple's tax rate met its previous prediction of 30 percent, the company would have reported earnings of about $1.57 billion, or $1.71 a share.
For further information Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-920-5021. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/troywolv.
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