Proving its immunity from the macro-economic doldrums, Apple beat expectations and today reported record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion for its third fiscal quarter.
Apparently, it’s immune to “Antennagate” as well. In fact, demand for iPhone 4 and iPad is so great that the company can’t make enough of them. During a conference call, one analyst referenced musings that the company, experienced in supply/demand issues, is creating the problem on purpose, to which COO Tim Cook replied, no, that’s not the case. Executives didn’t go into detail as to what exactly is the supply problem except to say they’re working hard on fixing it.
Apple greatly reduced shipments of its earlier version of the iPhone after the iPhone 4 was announced in June, which resulted in lower sales for a period. Still, the company ended the quarter with total iPhone sales of 8.4 million, up 61 percent compared with a year ago.
Could the iPad cannibalize other lines of product from Apple? Popular negative opinion would say yes, but Cook said internally, Apple is focused on the synergy between its products, both technically and from a demand perspective. Devices like the iPad can have a halo effect, encouraging more consumers to buy more Apple products rather than fewer. If it does cannibalize on the PC space, that’s good because there are a lot of PCs to cannibalize, he said.
To top it off, Apple reported its best ever Mac quarter at a time it sold almost 3.3 million iPads.
Executives declined to disclose the split of iPad device sales between 3G and the Wi-Fi-only version. Executives also declined to say much about iAd, which was just launched July 1.
Improvements with the latest version of iOS are working in its favor in the enterprise space. Cook said more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are deploying or in pilots with the iPhone, and about 400 higher education entities have approved the iPhone for faculty, staff and students. In the first 90 days for the iPad, 50 percent of the Fortune 100 companies were deploying or testing it.
Apple shares were up more then 2 percent in after-hours trading, to $256.85.
