We’re all familiar with the expression “what goes up, must come down” -- but apparently that means nothing to the folks at Apple Inc., who continue to soar ever-higher with their quarterly financial results. Tuesday was no exception, with first quarter revenue of $46.33 billion and net profit of $13.06 billion. Is there any end in sight for this runaway money-making freight train?
Apple Inc. announced its fiscal first quarter financial results on Tuesday, covering the fourth calendar quarter ending December 31, 2011. It was indeed a very merry holiday season for the folks in Cupertino, who piled up another $46.33 billion in revenue, with “record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share.” How massive is that? Last year at this time the company only raked in a mere $26.74 billion with less than half of this quarter’s profit at $6 billion.
The company reported 37.04 million iPhones were sold in the quarter, a 128 percent unit growth from a year ago. iPads were also hot, with 15.43 million units sold for a 111 percent unit increase from a year ago -- and let’s not forget the Mac, which is still flying high with 5.2 million sold for a 26 percent unit increase year over year. About the only thing that didn’t increase was sales of the company’s iPod products, down 21 percent from a year ago with “only” 15.4 million sold.
“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”
“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook promised an “all-time” record for iPhone sales back in October and he certainly delivered, with the biggest single quarterly spike in the iconic handset’s short history. Apparently, it is an iPhone world, after all…
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