The media captures the first customers entering the Apple store on Fifth Avenue to purchase the just-released iPad. CREDIT: Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
They cannot be stopped.
Apple, the high-flying technology company, reported another smokin’ quarter on Wednesday, saying that sales soared 83 percent while profit jumped 95 percent.
The dollar amounts are staggering. Apple posted March-quarter revenue of $24.67 billion — meaning the company is well on its way toward exceeding $100 billion in sales for the full-year. In the least three months, Apple earned a whopping $5.99 billion. Both the revenue and earnings figures were new records for Apple.
“With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we’re firing on all cylinders,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.”
Apple shares surged nearly 3 percent in after-hours trading to hit $352.61. And the stock is on its way even higher, according to many Wall Street analysts, including Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu, who told CNBC that he believes there is “at least 100 points of upside potential” for the stock.
“They’re unstoppable,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told CNBC. “It seems like we’ve been saying the same thing for five years.” (It’s worth noting that Apple habitually low-balls earnings expectations, but it’s hard to argue with these numbers.)
On a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the company’s boffo performance was “fueled by record iPhone sales, robust demand for the iPad and strong Mac sales.”
Apple said it sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, an eye-popping 113 percent increase over last year, destroying Wall Street’s consensus estimate of 16.6 million units. Macs sales came in strong at 3.76 million units, a 28 percent increase.
Interestingly, Apple sold 4.69 million iPads in the quarter, missing Wall Street’s estimate of 6.2 million. But as we’ve seen before, this is a “happy problem” for the company, because it literally cannot produce enough devices to satisfy consumer demand.
“Demand for the iPad has been staggering,” Apple COO Tim Cook told analysts, “and we’re heavily backlogged. We’ve sold every one we could make.”
Cook said he could not predict when the company would be able to have enough iPad 2 inventory to meet demand, bringing supply and demand closer to equilibrium. (Right now, it’s seriously out of whack. Cook called it “the mother of all backlogs.”)
“I can only be confident on the supply side,” Cook noted dryly.
Cook, who is acting-CEO of Apple while Steve Jobs is on medical leave, was asked about the health of the company’s iconic founder and the prospects of his return to the company.
“He’s still on medical leave, but we do see him on a regular basis,” Cook replied. “He continues to be involved in major strategic decisions and I know he wants to be back full-time as soon as he can.
Asked about the impact on Apple business from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japanese, Cook said Apple doesn’t anticipate a “material” impact on the company’s financial results for the current quarter, however he warned that there is still “supply chain risk” moving forward because the still-unfolding situation.
Noting continued aftershocks, power disruptions, and the uncertainty with Japan’s nuclear reactors, Cook said, “I would worry if something took a turn for the worse, but I can’t predict that right now.”
Cook, who said that Apple sources hundreds of individual parts from Japan, said that employees have been “working around the clock with our suppliers to implement a number of contingency plans, and they’ve displayed an incredible resilience that I’ve personally never before.”
Cook said the the economic impact of the disaster in Japan on Apple, “pales in comparison to the human impact.” He said “our hearts go out to the people of Japan.”
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