Apple yesterday reported a strong growth in quarterly profit and revenue, boosted by sales of iPhones during the period. Apple shipped 5.2 million iPhones in the June quarter, 10.2 million iPods, and 2.6 million Macs, the company said. Its iPhone sales represented a 626 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter and helped offset a seven percent decline in iPod sales.
Revenue came in at US$8.34 billion for its fiscal third-quarter (ending June 27, 2009), compared to US$7.46 billion in the year-ago quarter, while profit was up 15 percent at US$1.23 billion. The company’s gross margin was 36.3 percent, up from 34.8 percent a year earlier.
“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
Last week Intel reported strong second-quarter earnings and said its results “reflected improving conditions in the PC market segment.”
Gartner and IDC have released preliminary numbers for PC sales in the second quarter of 2009, and while sales are down, the market didn’t fall as much as had been predicted. Gartner reckons that worldwide PC shipments were 68.1 million units, which is 5% lower than the second quarter of 2008, but had forecast a decline of 9.8%. Rival analysts at IDC put shipments at 66.3m units (excluding x86 servers), down by 3.1%, against an expected decline of 6.3%.
