Apple's record earnings

Apple today reported record breaking earnings that soared above all previous quarterly results, marking the best three-month period for the Cupertino-based company since its inception in 1976. "We're thrilled to report our best quarter ever, with the highest revenue and earnings in Apple's history," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We have an incredibly strong new product pipeline for 2008, starting with MacBook Air, Mac Pro and iTunes Movie Rentals in the first two weeks."

The company raked in $9.6 billion in revenue for a net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion, beating out its 2006 December quarterly revenue by nearly $2.5 billion and besting the year-ago quarter's net profit by $580 million.

Apple's record results were spurred by swelling international sales which accounted for 45 percent of the quarter's revenue, as well as a surge in Mac and iPod shipments.

"Apple's revenue grew 35 percent year-over-year to $9.6 billion, an increase of almost $2.5 billion over the previous December quarter's record-breaking results," said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. "Our strong results produced cash flow from operations of over $2.7 billion during the quarter, yielding an ending cash balance of over $18.4 billion."

The company is guiding investors conservatively as usual during the coming quarter, with expected revenue of about $6.8 billion and earnings per diluted share of around $0.94. Apple said it is guiding gross margin down sequentially due to an expected decline of software sales and seasonality, as the company's March quarter is historically much slower than the prior December quarter which includes sales from the holidays.

by MacNN Staff