Apple Computer Inc's fourth quarter earnings soared on strong sales of laptop computers and its popular iPod music players, helping the company notch its highest revenue for the quarter in nine years.
The results easily topped Wall Street's expectations.
PHOTO: AP
The company attributed the successful quarter to robust sales across its product line, namely its iBook and PowerBook computers, its iPod music players and stronger-than-expected results from its retail and education sectors.
"They all came together and did very well," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer said in an interview.
For the three months ended Sept. 25, Apple said it earned US$106 million, or US$0.26 per share. In the same period last year, the company earned US$44 million, or US$0.12 a share.
Excluding a one-time restructuring charge of US$4 million, Apple said that it would have earned US$110 million, or US$0.27 per share.
Revenue for the quarter was US$2.35 billion, up 37 percent from US$1.7 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had projected earnings of US$0.18 a share on revenue of US$2.15 billion.
Although its list of rivals in the portable music player segment is growing, Apple clearly dominates. The company's iPod accounts for about 92 percent of unit sales of hard-drive based players and more than 65 percent of the overall portable player category, according to Apple.
The company said it sold more than 2 million iPods during the quarter -- a record -- while retail store revenues grew 95 percent from the year-ago period.
Sales of laptops and iPods also led to the education sector's best performance in four years, with unit sales up 19 percent and revenues up 21 percent, Oppenheimer said.
Separately, a market research report showed Wednesday that Apple's iTunes has fended off new challengers to remain the dominant player in paid music downloads, as the market appears to have hit a plateau.
A survey by NPD Group found that nearly 70 percent of music files downloaded legally between December 2003 and July 2004 were from iTunes.
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