Highlights from Apple’s Quarterly Financial Results Conference Call

By Scott McNulty

Earlier today Apple held its Quarterly financial conference call for for the fiscal quarter that ended Dec. 25, 2004. You can listen to it yourself thanks to the magic of Quicktime streaming here, however I must warn you that this conference call is slightly less exciting then watching dry paint (not paint dry, but actually looking at paint that is already dry).

But for you dear readers I endured the conference call to get a few highlights to save you the time. The short version, things are good.

The slightly longer version:

  • Apple had net profits of $295 million or $.70 per diluted share
  • Revenue was $3.4 billion up 74% from last year Gross margins are up from 26.7% to 28.5%
  • International sales account for 41% of all sales
  • This quarter had the highest Mac shipments in four years
  • Apple shipped 1,046,000 Macs a 26% increase over last year
  • Apple shipped 4,580,000 iPods a 525% increase over last year with the Apple iPod from HP accounting for 7% of
    that number
  • Peripheral sales are up 28% from last year
  • The iTunes Music Store has sold 230 million tracks and has made a small profit for the quarter
  • 101 retail stores are open and Apple expects to have 125 open by the end of 2005 (including 10 outside of the
    USA)
  • 10.7 million people visited the stores this quarter
  • About 40% of the Macs sold via Apple Retail stores are sold to Windows users

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