Apple earnings: $97.6 billion in the bank, and other highlights
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Apple just reported its best quarter of all time, as covered by my colleague David Sarno here on the Technology blog.
The Cupertino tech giant reported a boost in sales of iPads, iPhones and Mac computers (but not iPods), pushing it into a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and $13 billion in profit for the first quarter of the company’s 2012 fiscal year.
Let’s take a closer look at Apple’s huge numbers for the quarter ended Dec. 31, which showed strong holiday sales and sent shares in the company up 8% after the markets closed Tuesday.
Cash balance -- One major number to note from Apple’s earnings report, as mentioned in its earnings call, is that the company has a cash balance of $97.6 billion, up from $81 billion a year ago.
That’s a massive amount to be sitting in the bank and it’s a sum Apple will spend in part on developing new products that will help it remain competitive against rivals such as Samsung, Sony, HTC and Motorola.
Revenue -- Apple racked up $46.33 billion in sales in the 14-week quarter, which is up from $26.74 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
Profit -- The tech giant reported a $13-billion profit last quarter, which is more than double the profit the company reported for its first fiscal quarter of 2011.
IPhones -- Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011, which marks 128% growth from a year earlier, when the company sold 16.25 million iPhones.
IPads -- Sales of the ever-popular Apple tablet grew 111% when compared to the year-earlier quarter, with 15.43 million iPads sold for the company’s fiscal 2012 first quarter versus 7.33 million iPads sold in the first quarter of 2011.
IPods -- The iPod isn’t dead yet, but it is on the decline. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods last quarter, down 21% from 19.45 million iPods sold a year earlier.
Mac computers -- Apple’s Mac line of desktop and laptop PCs -- which includes MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Minis and the Mac Pro -- saw a 26% increase in sales from the year-ago quarter, with 5.2 million Macs sold in the first fiscal quarter of 2012 and 4.13 million Macs sold in the first fiscal quarter of 2011.
‘Portables,’ which would include the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, made up the majority of Macs purchased, with 3.71 million units sold last quarter, up from 2.9 million sold a year ago. Apple sold 1.48 million desktops last quarter, up from 1.23 million sold a year earlier.
Looking ahead, Apple said Tuesday that it is projecting it will record about $32.5 billion in revenue in the second quarter of its fiscal year.
[Updated: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Apple’s profit for the first quarter of its fiscal year was $6 billion. Apple reported a $13 billion profit last quarter and recorded $6 billion in profit a year earlier.]
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+