Apple has announced that it made $5.99 billion in its fiscal second quarter, which ended on 26 March. That’s an increase of 95% on the previous year. It recorded record revenue for the quarter, of $24.67 billion, an increase of 83% on the previous year.
Contributing to the record figures were Mac sales of 3.76 million, up 28% year-on-year, and iPhone sales of 18.65 million, more than double the sales of a year ago. iPad sales were 4.7m for the quarter, down on the previous quarter due to difficulties supplying enough iPad 2 units to meet demand. iPod sales were 17% down on last year, at just over nine million.
‘With quarterly revenue growth of 83 percent and profit growth of 95 percent, we’re firing on all cylinders,’ said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. ‘We will continue to innovate on all fronts throughout the remainder of the year.’
During a conference call with analysts following the announcement, chief operating officer, Tim Cook, said that the 28% growth in Mac sales came at a time when, according to IDC, the overall PC market declined by 3% and it was the twentieth consecutive quarter that Apple had outperformed that market. He singled out the MacBook Air as a particularly strong contributor to the growth in Mac sales.
Cook also told analysts that the growth in iPhone sales was ahead of the IDC figures for overall market growth and that the iTunes Store had its best quarter ever. Even iPod sales, which fell by nearly two million units, were ahead of expectations, he said.
The extent to which iPad sales are constrained by supply issues became clearer during the call. Cook explained that the company has sold every iPad 2 it has made and that its iPad inventory reduced by 400,000 units during the quarter, putting it below the company’s predicted range. Apple sold 4.7m iPads during the quarter, but would have sold more had it been able to make them. Cook said that with the iPad 2, Apple had ‘the mother of all backlogs,’ but was ‘working very, very hard to get it out to customers as quickly as we can.’
Answering questions about the extent to which the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan had affected supply of components for Apple products, Cook told analysts that the ‘economic impact pales in comparison to the human impact.’ He also said that thanks to ‘an incredible resiliance that I’ve personally never seen before,’ Apple had been able to work with its long term supply partners in Japan to implement contingency plans to mitigate the effect of the tragedy on component supply. He explained that there had been no cost or supply impact on Apple in quarter 2 and that he didn’t expect any in quarter 3. He did note, however, that Apple had factored in a revenue reduction of $200m for quarter 3 as a consequence of the crisis in Japan.
