Notes of interest from Apple's Q3 2012 conference call

A record quarter for the iPad was the stand-out performance of Apple's third quarter of fiscal 2012. Following Tuesday's earnings release, the company held a conference call with analysts and the media, and notes of interest follow.

Participating in Tuesday's call was Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer.

Highlights

• New all-time quarterly record for iPad unit sales.
• Mac sales only grew 2 percent year over year, but that was enough for a new June quarter record on sales of 4 million units.
• Number of iPhones in the Fortune 500 have more than doubled in the last year, while iPads have more than tripled.
• More than 410 million iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) have been sold to date.
• More than $5.5 billion has been paid to iOS App Store developers.
• Weekly iPhone sales continue to be negatively impacted by rumors of new products, Oppenheimer revealed. Cook said he believes there is "incredible anticipation" for future products that has affected sales, though the exact impact is "difficult to sort out."
• "We could not be more confident in our new product pipeline," Oppenheimer said, though he unsurprisingly declined to offer any specifics or details.

Apple's iPhone business

iPhone growth was 28 percent year over year with 26 million units. Distribution is now at over 250 carriers in over 100 countries.

iPhone channel inventory ended the quarter at 4-6 weeks.

$16.2 billion in recognized revenue from iPhone sales, an increase of 22 percent from a year ago.

Oppenheimer highlighted iPhone adoption in the enterprise, saying it helps businesses and employees be more productive.

Apple's iPad business

iPad sales grew 84 percent to 17 million. Apple is now selling iPad in 97 countries.

Recognized revenue was $9.2 billion in the quarter, an increase of 52 percent from a year ago.

About 3.2 million units were in the channel at the end of the quarter, leaving Apple at 4-6 weeks of inventory.

Interest in the new iPad was "high," but sales of the reduced-price iPad 2 in the K-12 education market were particularly strong, Oppenheimer said.

Apple's Mac business

The June quarter was the best ever for U.S. education institution sales of the Mac.

Portables represented nearly three quarters of all Mac sales for the quarter.

Apple ended the quarter with 3-4 weeks of Mac channel inventory.

Mac sales were hurt by the timing of the portable announcement last quarter, Cook said, as new products were announced with less than three weeks remaining in the quarter.

Prior to WWDC, weekly Mac sales were running below the previous year, but after WWDC, new MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs drove sales growth and pushed Apple into a positive.

MacBook Pro with Retina display was "incredibly well received." Apple hasn't yet met demand, but Cook said he expects they will do so next month.

Apple's App Stores, iTunes, iCloud, and Apple TV

iTunes had sales of over $1.8 billion, iTunes Store launched in over 12 countries including Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan last month.

Apple TV sales were 1.3 million in the quarter, up over 170 percent year over year. 4 million units in the fiscal year, which Cook called "pretty incredible."

Apple's iPod business

iPod touch accounted for more than half of iPods sold, and iPod sales were higher than Apple expected.

Ended quarter with 4-6 weeks of iPod channel inventory.

Apple's retail business

Revenue at retail stores was $4.1 billion, an increase of 17 percent from a year ago. Apple's stores sold 791,000 Macs.

9 new stores opened during the quarter. There are now 373 total Apple stores, with 123 of them outside of the U.S.

Average revenue per store was $11.1 million.

Apple's regional business segments

Asia-Pacific grew 25 percent in the quarter. Greater China represents about a third of Apple's growth in the region.

China's revenue was $5.7 billion, a 48 percent year over year increase.

Cook said Apple was "incredibly pleased" with the performance of the iPhone greater China. Sales were up more than 100 percent year over year.

Europe was "essentially flat" year over year for the iPhone, Cook said. He highlighted that region as the biggest disappointment.

U.K. was relatively solid with 30 percent growth, but France, Greece and Italy were singled out as "particularly poor," while Germany saw just single-digit growth for the quarter.