SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computers beat Wall Street targets with a 67 per cent rise in quarterly profit today, led by strong sales of its Macintosh computers and a big first full quarter from the iPhone, sending its shares up nearly 6 per cent.
The results showed that
the popularity of Apple's new gadgets was driving up sales of its core computer products, analysts said.
"There's no question that Mac sales are still having a halo effect from the iPod and iPhone," said Tim Bajarin, president of technology consulting company Creative Strategies.
Apple's net profit was US$904 million ($1.2 billion), or US$1.01 per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with US$542 million, or 62 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue was US$6.22 billion, up 29 per cent from US$4.84 billion a year earlier.
The results handily beat Wall Street's average targets of 85 cents per share earnings and US$6.06 billion revenue, according to Reuters Estimates.
Apple also forecast fiscal first-quarter revenue of US$9.2 billion, ahead of the US$8.7 billion average Wall Street target.
"The guidance was extremely strong, well north of consensus. It appears that they are expecting an extremely solid holiday shopping season and, I would guess, strength from the launch of the iPhone in Europe," said analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research.
IPhone sales of 1.12 million were toward the high end of a range of forecasts given by three analysts in research notes. They expected between 900,000 and 1.2 million iPhones sold.
Apple shipped 2.2 million Macintosh computers, ahead of the three analysts' views of 1.9 million to 2.1 million, while iPod sales of 10.2 million were light of the analysts' range of 10.5 million to 11 million.
Shares of Apple have more than doubled since the start of the year, when Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. The stock trades at 37 times its expected 2008 profit, at the high end of the company's historical range.
Shares of Apple rose to US$184.39 in after-hours trade from a Nasdaq close of US$174.36.
- REUTERS
