Apple Announces Stellar Fiscal Q4 Results

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

We already knew Apple had sold a ton of iPhones, based on the fact that the iPhone had become AT&T’s top-selling phone in that company’s Q3 results. Today Apple released its Q4 fiscal earnings (yeah, it’s one of those companies that likes to run its fiscal year separate from real time just to confuse us ), handily beating Wall Street’s revenue and profit estimates.

Wall Street had expected revenue of $6.1 billion and earnings per share of 86 cents, according to estimates compiled by Thomson Financial. Apple returned revenue of $6.22 billion and earnings per share of $1.01.

Perhaps more significantly than the 1.1 million iPhones Apple shipped during the quarter, the company reported Mac shipments up 34% compared to last year, and iPod shipments up 17%. Last week IDC reported PC shipments up 15.5% in the quarter, so Apple more than doubled that rate of increase.

In a press release, Steve Jobs said, “We are very pleased to have generated over $24 billion in revenue and $3.5 billion in net income in fiscal 2007. We’re looking forward to a strong December quarter as we enter the holiday season with Apple’s best products ever.”

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said, “Apple ended the fiscal year with $15.4 billion in cash and no debt. Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2008, we expect revenue of about $9.2 billion and earnings per diluted share of about $1.42.”

We Say: The stock is up $12 a share at the time of this writing, in after-hours trading.