Apple Posts Record 2nd Quarter Sales

By Ed Oswald | Published April 13, 2005, 5:44 PM

Apple blew past expectations, announcing record second quarter earnings and a net profit of $290 million, according to data released late Wednesday. But the good news did not end there for the Cupertino-based company; 1 million Macs and an astounding 5.3 million iPods were shipped during the quarter.

Pete Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, told analysts in a conference call Wednesday that much of the demand behind the iPod came from "strong response to the iPod Shuffle," and data showed that in February the Shuffle had a 43 percent share of the Flash-based market.

According to Wall Street estimates, Apple was expected to record earnings per share of 24 cents on revenue of $3.2 billion. The company surpassed both numbers, posting earnings of 34 cents on revenue of $3.25 billion. Domestic sales accounted for 60 percent of the Apple's revenue during the quarter.

"We are delighted to report a record second quarter for Apple in both revenue and earnings," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in prepared remarks. "Apple is firing on all cylinders and we have some incredible new products in the pipeline for the coming year, starting with Mac OS X Tiger later this month."

Apple also announced that it expects next quarter's revenue to remain at $3.25 billion.

"Continued increases in iPod sales are clear indication that the device has achieved iconic status. The situation creates huge opportunity for Apple and huge barrier for other portable music player manufacturers," Joe Wilcox, senior analyst at Jupiter Research, told BetaNews. "Sequentially, iPod revenue fell 16 percent, even as unit sales rose 16 percent. The difference suggests the impact of lower iPod pricing."

In recent months, there has been a good deal of discussion involving a so-called "halo effect" around the iPod - meaning that the popularity of the iPod and positive user experiences would help to drive Windows users to the Mac platform.

Wednesday's results indicate that the "halo effect" may indeed be real: as iPod sales have increased, so have sales of the Mac. Additionally, over 40 percent of retail Mac customers in the second quarter never owned an Apple computer before.

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Fiscal year 2005 - 2nd Quarter

Redmond, Wash. – January 27, 2005 – Microsoft Corp. today announced record revenue of $10.82 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2004, a 7% increase over the results in the same period of the prior year. Operating income for the second quarter was $4.75 billion, which was an increase of $3.27 billion over the same period in the prior year. The results of the second quarter of the prior year included $2.21 billion in compensation expense incurred in connection with the Employee Stock Option Transfer Program. Net income for the second quarter was $3.46 billion. Diluted earnings per share exceeded the company’s guidance by $0.04 and were $0.32 including stock-based compensation expense.

http://www.microsoft.com...Y05/earn_rel_q2_05.mspx

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So essentially, Apple has 25% of the revenue of MS, despite holding only about 3% of the market...

rather impressive :)

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hmm have you finished primary school? anyway Win + R -> calc ;)

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Actually, since Apple is actually selling mostly hardware, you should be comparing it with all the PC Manufacturers combined + Microsoft.
Let's just do top two: Dell (13.4 Billion) + HP (21.5 Billion) + Microsoft (10.82 Billion) = $45.72 billion. Meaning Apple earned 6.5% of the total income with the top two PC manufacturers + Microsoft. Which is right on line with what we all expect.

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You're right, MS being able to generate over 11x the profit that Apple did on only 3 1/3 more revenue IS very impressive. No one cares how much a company sells, the only thing that matters is how much money they actually pocket from those sales.

It should also be noted that iPod sales are a huge reason why Apple has rebounded. They practically own the HD MP3 market which Microsoft plays no part in. Remove iPod sales and Apple's revenue will take quite a hit.

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Not that impressive - Apple sells mostly hardware, which has a much higher cost than software. They run much lower margins.

Anyone knows that the ratio between cost/income is going to be much higher in a business that specializes in services... which MS does. They sell $2 worth of paper and plastic for prices ranging between $50 and $5,000,000 dollars.

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wow... are you still IN primary school?

personal attacks would be considered somewhat tasteless and immature.

The math works just fine - unlike the attitude.

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Sad thing is that if you own Apple stock you'll never see a dime of this profit. But P.T. Barnum was right — there's a sucker born every minute — for slow hardware and DRM-crippled music and "upgrades" that consistently remove features from their products.

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If you've ever used a G5 machine it doesn't show at all... if a G5 is slow, that would make a state of the art Xeon monolithic...

I'm a Windows user, but I understand that deluding myself into believing what I'm using is the end-all-be-all is asinine.

Apple certainly has their problems, but slow hardware isn't one of them. Lack of games would be their biggest weakness in the consumer market.

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Is anyone really surprised?

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