How do you like them apples?
It's amazing how a few numbers can put the obsessions of the tech press into brutal perspective. While we were all, rightly, criticising Apple for launching a phone that you can't hold however you like, Apple was getting on with selling more kit than ever before.
In retrospect, couldn't the Apple press conference have waited a few more days? All that indignation from Steve Jobs at having his wisdom questioned would have had a lot more resonance against the background of some kick-ass numbers. Maybe Jobs wanted to get that stuff off his chest before hosting a more restrained earnings conference call.
So here they are: Apple's revenue of $15.7 billion was a new quarterly record and around a billion ahead of analyst expectations. Revenue grew 61 percent year-on-year and its net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion is 78 percent up on a year ago. All in all a pretty good effort, and it doesn't end there. Apple expects revenue for this quarter to be around $18 billion, which again is a cool bill above expectations.
"It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple's history with iPhone 4," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year."
Of course any new Apple product will have some kind of superlative attached to it, but it's intriguing that Jobs chose to stoke up the hype machine once more, having already had two huge launches this year. The only thing we can think of that would qualify as potentially ‘amazing' would be Apple TV done properly, but let the frenzy of speculation begin.
All this cash - Apple added $4 billion to the pile last quarter - comes on the back of selling unprecedented amounts of stuff. 8.4 million iPhones were sold - 33 percent up on a year ago - and bear in mind that this quarter ended on 26 June, while Apple only started selling the iPhone 4 on 24 June. Having said that, it still shifted 1.7 million of them in those three days.
But the most remarkable figure to us is for iPads. When it was launched Jobs called it a new category, but many thought it would cannibalise Mac sales. Well, Apple managed a new quarterly record for Mac sales with 3.47 million and at the same time it also sold almost as many iPads as Macs - 3.27 million - having only started selling it in that quarter. Pretty intimidating numbers for Apple's competitors.
Apple's shares were up 2.5 percent yesterday and a further 2.9 percent in after-hours trading.
