Although its sales numbers managed to top forecasts, Apple reported a weaker-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter earnings growth of 24 percent. The profit growth is the result of the massive sales of iPhones as it accounted for nearly half of the company's sales.
The last five weeks saw an aggressive revamping of Apple's product line up with new iPhones, iPads, iPods and computers; however, the company has failed to deliver enough devices to meet the growing customer demand. While customers find it hard to find the new models in the retails, shortage of supply has caused a 9 percent fall in Apple shares ever since the latest version of iPhone hit the market. Apple with its announcement of fourth quarter results, revealed that the products are expensive to make and that is nibbling into its ample profits.
"The Company posted quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share," Apple said in a statement announcing the quarterly results. "These results compare to revenue of $28.3 billion and net profit of $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter's revenue."
Apple's business mainly rod on its mobile devices as revenue from the iPhone jumped 56 percent to $17.13 billion, making up 48 percent of the company's total revenue. In other words, the tech titan sold 26.9 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 58 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 14.0 million iPads during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter; 4.9 million Macs during the quarter, a 1 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter; and it sold 5.3 million iPods, a 19 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
"We're very proud to end a fantastic fiscal year with record September quarter results," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We're entering this holiday season with the best iPhone, iPad, Mac and iPod products ever, and we remain very confident in our new product pipeline."
"We're pleased to have generated over $41 billion in net income and over $50 billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2012," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO. "Looking ahead to the first fiscal quarter of 2013, we expect revenue of about $52 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $11.75.
