For the first quarter ending December 25, 2004, the Cupertino, California-based company posted net income up 368% at $295 million, from $63 million a year ago. Revenue meanwhile grew 75% to $3.49 billion, up from $2.0 billion in the year-ago quarter.
On average, analysts had been expecting Apple to post a profit of $196 million on revenue of $3.2 billion.
We’re pleased to report 74% revenue growth, 26% Mac unit growth, and 525% iPod unit growth, said CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Looking ahead to the second quarter we expect revenue of about $2.9 billion and earning per diluted share of about $0.40.
During the last three months, Apple shipped a record 271,000 iBook laptops and made $1.2 billion from selling 4.58 million iPods, a 525% boost from the holiday quarter of 2003.
The success of the iPod has made Apple something of a Wall Street darling, and the company has sold more than 10 million of these devices since their debut in 2001. In the past year alone, Apple’s share price has tripled, and the company holds 65% of the hard drive portable music market.
The runaway success of the iPod has also helped Apple to build up a very impressive cash pile (plus short-term investments) of approximately $6.4 billion. This money gives the company a certain degree of financial independence that is allowing Steve Jobs to experiment with differing strategies.
One of these seems to be the intention to take on the Wintel alliance, after introducing a cut-rate computer the size of a large paperback book. The Mac Mini box stands at just two inches tall and weighs only 2.9 pounds, although it does not come with monitor, mouse, or keyboard. There are two versions, and the 40GB unit will cost $499, whereas the 80GB model will retail at $599.
Apple also introduced its own suite of office software, iWork ’05, with the Mac Mini. The package contains Pages, a new word processor, and Keynote 2, roughly equivalent to Microsoft PowerPoint.
Apple has only 3% of the US computer market, and company executives say they are aiming the Mac Mini to woo PC users who may have felt Apple products were too expensive. A conventional iMac box currently starts at approximately $1,299.
Apple also this week introduced the tiny iPod Shuffle. The shuffle is a flash-memory-based digital music player, which is more durable and lightweight than iPods that use hard drives for storage. The shuffle is smaller than most packs of chewing gum, weighs less than an ounce, and is a third of an inch thick.
The 512MB device holds up to 120 songs and costs $99, whereas the 1GB device doubles the song capacity and will sell for $149. The devices have no displays, but do a have a switch that enables the user to listen to songs in order or shuffle them.
