Apple released its Q4 earnings report. While it missed some estimates, it still had a record September quarter and all time record for iPad and Mac sales. Though iPhone sales were down, it was still a record September quarter for iPhone sales.
CEO Tim Cook opened the earnings conference call by noting that this was the first one since the passing of Steve Jobs. “The world has lost a visionary, a creative genius and an amazing human being,” he said, adding that his “spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”
Cook said he wanted to express gratitude for the condolences and expressions of support following Steve’s passing.
He then turned the call over to CFO Peter Oppenheimer to go through the financials.
Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter – 21% growth year-over-year. They sold 11.12 million iPads (up 166% year-over-year). They sold 4.89 million Macs (up 26% year-over-year). They sold 6.62 million iPods (down 27% year-over-year).
Oppenheimer noted that Mac growth has been largely fueled by the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro, with 74% of Mac sales being portable Macs, though they also had record desktop sales. He also noted hat there were over 6 million downloads of Mac OS X Lion during the quarter.
The company says iPhone sales were better than they expected, as buzz built for the next-generation to come out in the fall. In other words, they expected people to hold off on buying an iPhone until the iPhone 4S came out.
Well, they may have been right, as the 4S is selling like hotcakes.
He did note that the Asia Pacific has contributed to strong iPhone sales growth. Sales in that region more than doubled year-over-year.
On the iPod front, the company says sales were ahead of their expectations, despite being down year-over-year. iPod still controls 70% of the portable digital music player market. iTunes also had record results.
Apple says it will continue to focus on international expansion of Apple Retail stores.
They also announced 250 million iOS devices sold.
During a Q&A session, Cook said he expects to have an all time record iPhone quarter this quarter.
They will continuously rebroadcast the earnings call here. See the whole earnings report here.