Apple profit soars, but outlook 'challenging'
Updated throughout at 3:15 p.m. PT after Apple's conference call.
Apple's fourth-quarter profit soared past expectations on extremely strong sales of the iPhone, but revenue was a little light, and the company left itself a lot of wiggle room heading into what it called a "challenging" environment.
For the company's fourth fiscal quarter, or the period ended September 27, Apple reported revenue of $7.9 billion, compared with revenue of $6.2 billion in the same quarter last year. Net income was $1.14 billion, or earnings per share of $1.26. Analysts had been expecting revenue of $8 billion and earnings per share of $1.11.
iPhone sales were astonishing during the quarter: Apple sold 6.9 million iPhone 3Gs during the quarter, which was far more than analysts had been anticipating and more than the total number of original iPhones sold in a year. Apple lifted the kimono a bit on just how much revenue the iPhone is contributing to the company's future prospects, explaining just how much revenue the iPhone would have contributed to Apple's results if the company didn't use subscription-based accounting methods for that product.
In a rare appearance on the conference call, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that Apple outshipped Research In Motion during the quarter and called the iPhone results "stunning." "Some remarkable things are happening at Apple," he said.
But the most eagerly awaited number was Apple's guidance for its first fiscal quarter, which coincides with the all-important holiday shopping season. Apple said it expects to record revenue between $9 billion and $10 billion and earnings per share between $1.06 and $1.35.
Analysts had been expecting more, of course, as Apple seems to always provide guidance under what the analysts had sought. The Wall Street group had expected revenue of $10.6 billion and earnings per share of $1.65.
Executives were cautious about predicting the future in the company's press release and on the conference call. "We don't yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we're armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees, and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt," Jobs said in the press release.
One slight worry could be Mac shipments, which came in at 2.6 million units for the quarter, which was a little below the consensus estimates of 2.7 million units. Apple COO Tim Cook explained the results by noting that the K-12 education market for computers fell 7 percent during the quarter compared to last year--28 percent in budget-strapped California--and also opined that "speculation" concerning the new MacBooks introduced earlier this month could have caused potential customers to delay their purchases in late September. He cautioned that it was difficult to tell whether the delays in September were due to the economic conditions as the stock market crashed in late September or by hesitant customers, but noted that notebook sales took off in the first week since the new models were introduced.
iPod units were about as expected at 11 million units during the quarter. This was the best non-holiday quarter for iPod sales in Apple's history, said CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Apple generally sells about twice as many iPods each holiday shopping season, with the bulk of those purchases coming in December, Cook said.
The fourth quarter marked the first time Apple began breaking out the sizable amounts of deferred revenue from the sales of the iPhone and Apple TV, which are being treated with subscription-based accounting methods. Apple is using a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) reporting method to outline the deferred revenue amounts, which are meant to provide a picture of what iPhone sales would look like if Apple recognized all the revenue from the sale of an iPhone at the time the purchase was recorded--like it does with the Mac--rather than recognizing that revenue over a 24-month period.
Apple recorded $3.5 billion in current deferred revenue related to the iPhone and Apple TV during the quarter, compared with $1.4 billion in deferred revenue during the third quarter of this year. It recorded $2.3 billion in noncurrent deferred revenue related to those two products. Those numbers pushed Apple's non-GAAP revenue for the quarter to $11.7 billion and its net income to $2.4 billion.
I'll examine the impact of those numbers more closely in a follow-up post, but they basically show that the iPhone has turned into a huge money-maker for Apple. If Apple had used standard accounting treatment for the iPhone, it would have accounted for 39 percent of Apple's business during the quarter, Jobs said.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
But overall, these are pretty solid, very impressive results. Apple has executed very well.
By what exceedingly ludicrous stretch of the imagination could an iPhone be considered a Mac?
A Windows 2003 Server and a Palm smartphone may both run a version of Windows, but that doesn't make them both PCs, does it?
"80 million Windows PC's were sold worldwide in the last quarter alone"
1) You better add Macs to the overall number since they run Windows too (better than Windows PC's by all accounts)
2) Whoopdedoo... Windows commodity PC's with are made by how many manufacturers competing for razor-thin margins? Compare Apple to any one of them and Apple is in a very good position (about third in value I think (behind IBM and HP), since it now has about three times the market value of beleagered box-assembler Dell).
Does Apple care about Dell's "market share" of the 80 million PCs sold worldwide? I don't think so...for example, in Aug Dell posted revenue of $16.43 billion just to make $616 million. That's quite the contrast from Apple which previously posted revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion for the quarter ended June 28, 2008.
In other words, Dell has to generate 2.2 times the revenue just to make 58% of Apple's profit. Not good.
And then, there Android, (tomorrow?) which will make Apple look as pathetic in the phone world, as they do in their single digit computer world.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoip!
A tiny 2.6 million Macs out of the 82 million personal computers sold last quarter, still leaves you pretty much 80 million Windows PC's sold last quarter.
The number of Macs sold is so tiny as to be irrelevant, so pretty much 100% of Windows PC owners run Windows on their PC's not Mac's.
"Windows commodity PC's with are made by how many manufacturers competing for razor-thin margins? Compare Apple to any one of them and Apple is in a very good position "
Both HP and Dell have had some pretty solid results this year so far.
HP makes more profits overall than Apple does.
While Apple's only just made $1.1 Billion in net profits this quarter, HP was making to the tune of $2.1 billion in net profits as far back as the Jan quarter (an increase of 38% over earnings from the same period of time last year). This came on the back of a 13% hike in gross revenue to $28.5 billion, which was significantly more than most analysts expected. Apple's revenues of $7.9 bilion is not even on the same planet.
And I can't even upgrade my HP Printer!
How dare they try to make a profit off us poor misguided computer users!
You bet.
That's why Apple keep boasting about their market share gains in the US all the time.
They don't talk so much about their tiny worldwide market share tho, because it sucks big time.
Nothing new there.
"The number of Macs sold is so tiny as to be irrelevant...tiny worldwide market share..."
BlahBlahBlah
Of course the number sold is tiny. As I said, Dell needs to sell 5 times as many to make the same amount of profit. Apple isn't trying to be in that business. They obviously don't listen to the so-called analysts and every self-appointed pundit out there like yourself. That's what irritates people I guess. Yet they have 3 times the growth of the industry year on year. Must be doing something right.
"They won't just walk into mobile phone market". Yup, with ONE model they just sold more units than RIMM last quarter.
They do "boast" about market share gains in US, why not. From being practically shut out they have made tremendous impact on people who are beginning to see that it isn't about how many people use a throw away product; afterall, everyone uses toilet paper.
Is market share gain their primary objective? I don't think so. I think they are trying to build a valuable, profitable company for the long-haul and they are succeeding. They do it with the highest owner satisfaction rates in the industry. They do it with solid products. They do it with four computers in 3 models each. And they do it by ignoring the pundits who insist they follow everyone else's business models. The fact that at least 1 in 3 students is choosing to buy a Mac is great.
Dells come and go every other year. Apple is far older and now in far better shape; they are still resilient, still setting trends, everyone is trying to copy them, and the press love to speculate about what they will do next -- as well as criticize them. I don't hear a word about what Michael Dell thinks and I don't care, he's irrelevant.
Haven't heard much about Sony lately either, they must be irrelevant.
HP? Sounds like they are trying to write their own OS (wonder where they got that idea). HP would like to make MS irrelevant because MS is a parasite on their business.
IBM, they are interesting -- been trying to get away from MS for years; leaning towards open standards; and they even use Apple Macs among their sales force so they can demonstrate their powerful business solutions to their big corporate clients. Who would have figured?
I wonder what the global numbers look like... those will take a lot longer for the iPhone to conquer (Symbian still dominates there), but I'm pretty sure that RIM is now offically scared, and chairs are definitely flying in Redmond tonight...
$25bn in the bank with no debt ain't bad either (MSFT has only $21.1bn and $1m in debt, while RIMM only has $1.5bn and $6m in debt)
Note that there is a diff between cash-on-hand and profits, though.
/P
They blew away RIMM, Motorolla, LG, Sony Ericcson, HTC, Kyocera and Palm.
Read it here: http://techztalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/iphone-sales-surpasses-blackberry-apple.html
Huh?
Get off the crack!
Apple is neither the 3rd largest cell phone maker by units sold, or by revenue.
Motorolla made $8.1 billion in their 2008 second quarter, that is more than Apple's ENTIRE revenue this quarter..AND, Motorolla made those revenues from cell phone sales. By far most of Apple's $7.9 billon in revenue this quarter, is NOT from cell phone sales.
When we come to actually number of cell phones sold, Apple is not even in kindergarten yet. Nokia alone sells over 500 million cell phones every year. In fact, Nokia sells those 6.9 million iPhones that Apple sold in this quarter, every TWO days!
Now why don't you try again?
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/21/steve_jobs_on_apples_cash_netbooks_apple_tv_and_cheap_pcs.html
But I luv this one:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/18841/
Its a fcat that Motorolla sells a heck of a lot more cell phones than Apple does. Motorolla sold over 28 million cell phones in the last quarter alone. Apple just sold 7 million cell phomnes this quarter.
It's not even close, and it's not even an issue.
Get over it.
All of you negative people....I don't understand. You constantly have bad things to say about Apple, no matter what they do. No they aren't perfect, but who is? Instead of saying "Apple isn't doing as great as everyone thinks; they only have {insert numbers} of the market share in {insert device}." why don't you say, whoa, good job Apple. The numbers themselves don't matter near as much as the trends, and Apple's trend this year is up. 10% is small, but it's still bigger than 6%.
Personally, I don't want Apple's market share to get a lot higher. The higher it gets, the lower the quality and the worst the support. If they get into business (selling primarily to business), they will forget the consumer, like Microsoft has.
I am always amused/annoyed by the Microsoft vs Apple fan hate comments. I like to think I look at everything objectively. It seems that most people can't. They just either love or hate whatever comes out of Apple or Microsoft.
For the umpteenth time, LG came out with the Prada touch screen smart phone, BEFORE Apple came out with their iPhone. In fact, there is a remarkable similarity between the Prada and the iPhone.
Apple did NOT invent the touch screen smart phone.
@ myles taylor : " Personally, I don't want Apple's market share to get a lot higher. The higher it gets, the lower the quality "
Higher market share means lower quality huh?
Well Toyota says "Hello"
Toyota's market share has been shooting up worldwide for the past 20 years, and they continue to have haver higher quality then anyone else. Quality of manufacture has nothing to do with market share.
Maybe you'd better look at the numerous technical glitches that the 3G iPhone has had.
Stop coming up with weak, self serving excuses for Apple's low wordlwide market share in PC's.
I have both Apple and non-Apple products in my home, and each meets a specific need better than the others. To hear the one-size-fits-all pontifications by the retarded fanboys on either side only serves to justify my utter contempt for most of humanity. Go ahead and bleat and rail against your perceived adversaries, and I will continue to get on with my life successfully, while you still reside in your parents' basement apartment after failing to find meaningful employment subsequent to obtaining your various worthless diplomas.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! LOOOOOOOOSERS! All of you!
Carry on, you wankers. By the way, I won't ever have to answer your questions as to whether or not I want to supersize my fries. Your contemporaries, however, will debate the merits of that for eons to come.
I am pretty sure no one gives a horse''s butt wbout what you do or don't think about anything either.
For a guy that bleats on about "utter futility of humanity, and idiocy ", you wasted to the tune of 15 lines posting plenty of what amounts the same idiocy.
British too huh?
That crap about "wankers" gave you are away.
There are no wankers like the Britiish. But I am sure you know that already.
"The number of Macs sold is so tiny as to be irrelevant...tiny worldwide market share..."
BlahBlahBlah
Of course the number sold is tiny. Again, Dell needs to sell 5 times as many to make the same amount of profit. Apple isn't trying to be in that business. I just read that Apple has the cash to buy Dell outright given Dell's current market cap.
"They won't just walk into mobile phone market". Yup, with ONE model they just sold more units than RIMM last quarter. But then again, Apple obviously don't listen to the so-called analysts and every self-appointed pundit out there like yourself. That's what irritates people I guess. Yet they have 3 times the growth of the industry year on year. Must be doing something right.
They do "boast" about market share gains in US, why not. From being shut out they have made tremendous impact on people who are beginning to see that it isn't about how many people use a throw away product; afterall, everyone uses toilet paper. Is market share gains their primary objective? I don't think so. I think they are trying to build a valuable, profitable company for the long-haul and they are succeeding. And they do it with four computers in 3 models each. People who use Macs usually buy another one (however, they don't need to replace their Mac as often as Windows users replace their plastic boxes because Macs last longer; Apple is just fine with that). That's a good market to have.
Companies like Dell come and go every other year. Apple is far older and now in far better shape. Yet they are still resilient, still setting trends, everyone is trying to copy them, and the press love to speculate about what they will do next as well as criticize them. I don't hear a word about what Michael Dell thinks, he's irrelevant.
HP? I hear they are trying to write their own OS (wonder where they got that idea?). They are trying to get away from MS because MS is a parasite on their business.
IBM? They are interesting. Been trying to shake MS for years. Got out of the consumer PC business; now leaning toward open standards and starting to use Macs among their sales people in order to demonstrate their powerful business services to large corporate clients. Hmmm.
Sony? Don't hear much about them and what they are doing: they must be irrelevant (are they trying a couple of all-in-one models or something but can't quite pull it off?). Oh yeah, Apple has pretty much decided Blu-Ray is irrelevant; everyone will catch on sooner or later. As usual.
Flash? that bloated processor hog'll soon be irrelevant in favor of open standards. Sad that some phone companies try to deliver useable apps and UI on Flash.
So, who has different platforms with a strong, unified codebase that can actually deliver quality on open standards and multiple platforms on a variety of processors? I guess the one company that actually knows where they are going and has a plan?
I already stated that in my very first post above. Check it.
- by Kwasiowusu October 22, 2008 4:45 AM PDT
- @ then-again : "Of course the number sold is tiny. Again, Dell needs to sell 5 times as many to make the same amount of "
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- by then-again October 22, 2008 5:10 AM PDT
- Hmmm
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- by Kwasiowusu October 22, 2008 5:28 AM PDT
- @ : "but according to your figure of 14 M computers sold per quarter they sell about 8 times as many computers as Apple"
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (39 Comments)Again, HP is making twice as much in profits as Apple does, even 2 quarters ago..and HP's profits have been growing faster than Apple's...and HP sells over 14 million Windows PC's per QUARTER..which blows Apple's entitre YEARLY sales out of the water, with plenty left over to go for dinner!
Apple is simply not even on the same planet when it comes to worldwide PC sales. Worldwide Mac sales are a rounding error.
HP has twice as much profits, but according to your figure of 14 M computers sold per quarter they sell about 8 times as many computers as Apple. Lovely. And your conclusion is? Bigger is better? OK. And I suppose there are also articles headlined "HP's Profit Soars". I would hope that huge international conglomerations have a larger footprint and figures than a company a fraction of their size.Your point?
The point is, Apple's profits and Apples ability to enter and shape new markets when it does (phones and MP3 players and media downloads where it recently surpassed Walmart to become number 1) is phenomenal. It plays up there with the "big boys" and it is market changing. Is HP innovating, pushing new technologies and standards and "changing the world"; or just making printers to go along with the boxes they sling Windows onto?
If I were you, I woiuldn't be too eager to trumpet the fact that HP sells a MASSIVE 8 times as many PC's per quarter as Apple does, and makes twice as much in profits as Apple does.
Its better to sell at mass market prices, sell more units and end up making more profits, than to sell at cutthroat prices like Apple does, and sell a puny 10 millions Macs for the whole year. That is why Toyota is by far the most succesul car maker on the planet. They make high quality cars and sell them at great prices, and sell by the bucketload.
If it were left to Apple, most of the world's consumers wouldn't be able to afford to buy personal computers.
Thank heavens for HP, Dell, Acer and Lenovo.