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Apple Sees Sales Skyrocket 75 Percent Thanks to Red-Hot iPods

Posted on: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 18:00 CDT

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. saw sales jump 75 percent in its latest quarter -- and net income more than quadruple -- as sizzling sales of iPod music players led the company to what CEO Steve Jobs called its best quarterly performance.

But Apple executives stunned some analysts by offering a more pessimistic view of how the company will fare in the next quarter.

"It's been a long time since they guided down," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research. "It's kind of bizarre considering the September quarter is usually a strong back-to- school quarter for Apple."

For the three months ended June 25, Apple's profit rose to $320 million, or 37 cents per share, up from the $61 million and 8 cents per share the company reported in the year-ago quarter.

Sales surged 75 percent to $3.52 billion from $2.01 billion last year.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected the Cupertino- based company to report earnings of 31 cents per share on revenue of $3.34 billion.

The company shipped 1.2 million Macintosh computers and 6.2 million iPods, the overwhelming leader among digital music players, during the quarter. The numbers represent a 35 percent increase in Mac sales and more than a six-fold jump for iPods from the third quarter in 2004.

For the fourth quarter, Apple predicted earnings of 32 cents per share on revenue of $3.52 billion. Analysts were looking for profit of 33 cents per share on sales of $3.6 billion.

Apple, which has now sold more than 20 million iPods, is seeing the music player create a "halo effect" around its other products, analysts said. The iPod craze is leading consumers to Macintosh computers.

Source: Columbian

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