Apple has announced its latest financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2012, the three months running up to the end of December 2011.
We knew the results were going to be good, given the reports of record iPhone 4S sales upon its launch in October, and indeed they represent a new record quarterly revenue for Apple. The Cupertino company took $46.3 billion in revenue with a record quarterly net profit of $13.1 billion, doubled up from $6 billion year-on-year (with revenue up from $27 billion).
That’s a massive leap, and it was unsurprisingly driven by the iPhone, which was up 128% on the same period last year with 37 million Apple smartphones being pushed out. Apple also proudly crowed about the iPad being unaffected by the launch of the Kindle Fire in the last quarter of 2011. Apple’s tablet shifted 15.4 million units, a 110% increase year-on-year.
Even Mac computer sales were up substantially by 26% with 5.2 million flogged. In fact, only iPods were down 21% with 15.4 million sold, exactly the same as the number of iPads coincidentally. Apple’s new CEO Tim Cook commented: “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”
CFO Peter Oppenheimer added: “We are very happy to have generated over $17.5 billion in cash flow from operations during the December quarter. Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50.” Apple is reportedly now sat on a cash pile of some $90 billion. Exactly how they leverage that sort of wealth, we shall have to see…