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Apple profits soar 70% on record sales of 14.1M iPhones, 3.89M Macs

Apple said Monday that fourth quarter profits rose more than 70% to $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, driven by record sales in three of its four major product categories.

The Cupertino-based company posted record revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $12.21 billion and net quarterly profit of $2.53 billion, or $2.77 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

Gross margin was 36.9 percent compared to 41.8 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 57 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

“We’re thrilled with the performance and strength of our business, generating almost $5.7 billion in cash flow from operations during the quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.80.”

Apple sold a record 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. It also sold a record 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

In total, the company shipped 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter, as well as 4.19 million iPads, another record quarterly shipment.

“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.”

Apple hold its Q4 2010 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT (5:00 PM Eastern) today and AppleInsider will have full coverage.

114 Comments

MacPro 19 Years · 19862 comments

Awesome. I hear iPad lower than expected. Not sure why RIM is mentioned. Android is the rival now.

Now lock the analysts up for the next three months will ya!

techno 21 Years · 737 comments

I can only imagine what the profits will be like when you can walk into a Canadian Apple Store and buy one.

macshark 22 Years · 223 comments

Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider

?Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $23 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $4.80.?

Revenue projection for the next quarter is 30% more than the current quarter, but earnings projection stays pretty much the same. This points to significantly lower margin expectation for the Xmas quarter. The only explanation I can think of is that Apple plans to sell significantly more iPods in the Xmas quarter and iPods have lower margin than other Apple products...

island hermit 15 Years · 6214 comments

... and...

... as always...

AAPL gets hammered after hours...

noexpectations 16 Years · 481 comments

3 years ago we were all impressed with 1 million iPhones in a quarter....now it's at 14 million!

If you ask the younger generations, "What is Apple?", they will now say "They are a cell phone company".