Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2009 third quarter ended 27 June. The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share.
These results compare to revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.3%, up from 34.8% in the same quarter last year.
Quarterly iPhones sold were 5.2 million, representing 626% unit growth over the same quarter last year.
International sales accounted for 44% of the quarter’s revenue.
In accordance with the subscription accounting treatment required by GAAP, the Company recognises revenue and cost of goods sold for iPhone and Apple TV over their estimated economic lives. Adjusting GAAP sales and product costs to eliminate the impact of subscription accounting, the corresponding non-GAAP measures for the quarter are $9.74 billion of adjusted sales and $1.94 billion of adjusted net income.
Apple sold 2.6 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a 4% unit increase over this quarter last year. The Company sold 10.2 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven% unit decline from the same quarter in the previous year.
Carolina Milanesi, Gartner analyst, stated: “iPhone sales were slightly above our expectations, showing that the ramp up for the 3GS was a bit faster than expected. Even for Apple, that underlined some constraint in meeting demand. This shows that despite the economic environment high end devices are still selling well, a trend that we have been seeing for some time now. Consumers going for mid range devices are either trading down to cheaper devices or up to get more for their money. Apple’s brand is certainly a key ingredient here. As a consumer you do not only buy a product that is serving you at the productivity and usability level but you are buying the wow factor and the status that comes with it.
“Apple has also made some price adjustments in June to reflect the more difficult economy and this will certainly help those people who have been on the fence in deciding if they could justify buying a product,” she continued. “On the iPhone side, however, the $100 decrease on price should be met by a lower data plan tariff if we are to see a more prolonged and positive impact on the market. Many people for whom a 100$ discount is important cannot actually afford the data plan associated with an iPhone.”
“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”
“We’re extremely pleased to report record non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings and quarterly cash flow from operations of $2.3 billion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.18 to $1.23.”