For its first fiscal quarter of 2012, Apple posted its largest quarterly revenue ever: $ 54.5 billion. It also netted $ 13.3 billion in profits and earnings per share of $ 13.81 billion. Earnings were right in line with what Wall Street was looking for: between $ 52.01 billion and $ 59.55 billion in revenue, and earnings per share between $ 11.97 and $ 15.50.
As expected, the iPhone blew away the previous record, 37 million units, set during the same quarter a year ago. Here are the device sales numbers:
- iPhone: 47.8 million, up from 37 million a year ago.
- iPad: 22.9 million, up from 15.4 million a year ago (how many were iPad minis? Hopefully we’ll find out on the call later.)
- Mac: 4.1 million, down by more than a million units from the same quarter a year ago.
- iPod: 12.7 million, down from 15.4 million last December quarter.
In a statement, CEO Tim Cook said, “We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $ 54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter.” He also made a subtle reference to the ongoing handwringing among Apple investors that the iPhone isn’t expected to sell as well going forward: “We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”
One of the metrics — that analysts will pay a lot of attention to — is Apple’s decreased gross margins for the quarter. Despite skyrocketing sales of its mobile devices, Apple’s gross margins fell to 38.6 percent, compared to 44.7 percent in the same quarter in 2011.
It’s not expecting much better for next quarter either: the company is forecasting gross margins to be somewhere between. 37.5 percent and 38.5 percent. Apple is also forecasting lower revenues for Q2, between $ 41 billion and $ 43 billion, which is typical for the first quarter of the year following the big holiday quarter.
This post was updated several times with more information about earnings.
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