Relentless
Device giant Apple has thrown down the gauntlet to its many would-be competitors with a record-breaking quarter. It posted revenue of $13.5 billion in the first quarter of the calendar year. This translated to a profit of $3.07 billion.
"We're thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year."
The bad news for the rest of the tech industry is that a lot of the growth came within the most critical, and thus competitive, sector - from the iPhone. Apple registered its highest quarter of iPhones ever, shifting 8.75 million, which represented 131 percent year-on-year growth. An interesting morsel to come out of the earnings call is that the average selling price of the iPhone is a massive $600.
And let's not forget how good Apple is at extracting maximum post-sales revenue from every iPhone sold. When you buy an iPhone you effectively buy-in to iTunes and the app store, which as well as providing Apple with revenue for every track or app sold, also ensure the cost of deserting iPhone to another smartphone platform is considerable. And let's not forget the newly-launched iAd platform.
Macs aren't doing too bad either, with the 2.94 million sold representing a 33 percent year-on-year increase. No doubt Macs continue to benefit from the halo-effect of Apple's mobile devices. On that note, Apple COO Tim Cook revealed that Apple was "shocked" at the level of demand for the iPad.
Despite these results comfortably beating the analyst consensus, Apple's shares were unmoved at time of writing; gaining a mere 0.35 percent in after-hours trading. It could be that UK chip designer ARM, which provides some of the IP inside both the iPhone and iPad chips, benefitted more, with its UK listing opening up over three percent this morning.
UPDATE - 09:50, 21 April 2010 - Scratch that comment about Apple shares; they're up five percent in pre-market trading.
