Oct. 22 -- Apple Inc. fourth-quarter profit jumped 67 percent, topping analysts' estimates, after it sold more Macintosh computers, iPhone handsets and new iPods.
Apple's forecast for sales and profit this quarter also beat predictions, sending the shares up 5.6 percent in extended trading. Annual sales increased to $24 billion, exceeding $20 billion for the first time in the company's 31-year history.
The company sold a record 2.16 million Macs during the back- to-school shopping season and shipped 10.2 million iPod media players after Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs released updated models. Apple sold 1.12 million iPhones, topping Jobs's July forecast of 730,000 units, helped by a $200 price cut last month.
``They knocked the cover off the ball,'' Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies in Wayland, Massachusetts, said in an interview. ``More than 2 million Macs, sold lots and lots of iPods, and the phones have done better than expected.''
Net income rose to $904 million, or $1.01 a share, from $542 million, or 62 cents, a year ago, Cupertino, California- based Apple said today in a statement. Sales climbed 29 percent to $6.22 billion in the period ended Sept. 29. Analysts had estimated profit of 85 cents on sales of $6.02 billion, according to a Bloomberg survey.
The company made more profit on average each week last quarter than it did in all of 2003.
Apple's Forecast
Profit this quarter will rise to about $1.42 a share on sales of $9.2 billion, Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in the statement. Analysts had anticipated $1.39 in profit and sales of $8.57 billion, the average estimates in the Bloomberg survey. Apple usually gives a forecast that's below analysts' estimates.
``We're looking forward to our best December quarter ever,'' Oppenheimer told analysts on a conference call. ``Apple is shipping the best products that we have ever made in our history.''
Apple rose $9.78 to $182.28 in extended trading. The shares had climbed $3.94, or 2.3 percent, to a record $174.36 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. They have more than doubled this year and are the fourth-best performer on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.
``They've tended to underpromise and overdeliver,'' said Romeo Dator, who helps manage $5.3 billion at San Antonio-based U.S. Global Investors Inc., which owns Apple shares. ``They'll probably overdeliver again.''
Beyond Computers
Jobs, who returned as CEO in 1997 after a 12-year absence from the company he founded, is working to change Apple from a computer maker into a consumer-electronics giant.
Since dropping the word ``computer'' from the company's name in January, Jobs has entered the mobile-phone arena with the introduction of the iPhone. He's counting on the device, released June 29, to sell 10 million units in 2008, capturing 1 percent of the mobile-phone market.
AT&T Inc., the exclusive U.S. provider of wireless service for the iPhone, gives Apple a share of the $60 to $220 it charges subscribers per month. Apple is accounting for sales of each device over 24 months, the length of users' wireless contracts.
The iPhone, along with related products and services, generated $118 million last quarter, Apple said.
IPhone revenue will rise this quarter as the device spreads to Europe. Mobile-phone partners in the U.K., Germany and France plan to start selling the $399 product next month.
Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook estimated that 250,000 of the total 1.4 million iPhones sold may have been purchased with the intention of being unlocked, or modified to work on a wireless network other than AT&T's.
Doing Windows
Jobs, 52, has spent the past two years updating the Mac with faster chips from Intel Corp. This year, he added software that lets users also run Microsoft Corp.'s rival Windows operating system on the machine.
Apple's PC market share in the U.S. in the third quarter widened to 8.1 percent from 6.2 percent, according to Gartner Inc. That was Apple's highest share in at least a decade.
Mac shipments rose 37 percent, the Stamford, Connecticut- based Gartner said. Apple posted the fastest growth among the top five PC makers, outpacing larger rivals Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc.
``Apple is reaching a strong inflection point in terms of PC market share,'' said Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, which raised its Apple share price estimate by 17 percent to $205 last week. ``Even though there's a lot of focus on the iPhone, it's really the Mac that's driving the growth in revenue and earnings per share.''
`Blow-Away Quarter'
The Mac accounted for half of revenue last quarter. Sales rose 40 percent to $3.1 billion. The average selling price for the Mac was $1,433, compared with $1,375 a year ago.
``The Mac had just a blow-away quarter,'' Oppenheimer said in an interview.
IPod demand also fueled sales last quarter. Apple has sold more than 110 million players since unveiling the gadget in October 2001. Jobs added new versions in September, including a video player called the iPod Touch that uses the same touch- screen technology as the iPhone.
IPod shipments rose 17 percent, from 8.73 million players a year earlier. Sales of the device, along with music sold through Apple's iTunes stores, reached $2.22 billion and accounted for 36 percent of revenue.
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