Updated 6:45 pm ET
Apple blew away analysts’ expectations again with its latest quarterly earnings report on Tuesday.
The most valuable company in the United States (updated: and now, potentially world) posted first quarterly 2012 earnings up 118 percent, according to MarketWatch.
The news is a direct refutation to the idea that the company would suffer a loss in momentum after the death of founder and former CEO Steve Jobs in October, and erases memories of the rare earnings miss in Q4 2011, when customers did not buy as many iPhones as usual because they were holding off for the iPhone 4S to be released.
“We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.”
Apple itself boasted of “record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion,” in its release on Tuesday afternoon.
That’s up almost double from the $6 billion in net profit Apple netted this time a year ago, Bloomberg pointed out.
The first quarterly revenue for 2012 also totaled to $13.87 per share, whereas analysts had been expecting something around $10 per share, according to MarketWatch.
The company said it sold 37.04 million iPhones a 128 percent increase over this time last year.
Apple also announced it sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent increase over the same time last year.
Still, Apple cautioned that its earnings would likely by slightly lower than that stellar result in the following quarter.
“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, which will span 13 weeks, we expect revenue of about $32.5 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $8.50,” said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer.
Apple’s earnings call began around 5 pm ET. We’ll update with pressing info as it continues. Stay tuned.
Late update: Apple concluded its earnings call around 6 pm ET, with CEO Tim Cook remaining poker-faced when it came to Apple’s rumored forthcoming iPad 3 and new voice-controlled Apple TV.
The current “Apple TV product is doing very well,” Cook said, pointing to 2.8 million units sold in the last year, 1.4 million in the first quarter of 2012 alone, a quarterly record. (Apple’s first fiscal quarter for 2012 ran from October 2011 to December 2011, consisting of an extra holiday week that helped boost sales.)
“In the grand scheme of things, when you dollarize the revenues, this is still a hobby for us,” Cook went on about Apple TV. “We continue to add things to it. It’s a fantastic product.”
Instead, Cook’s most quotable comments concerned Apple’s view of its increasing competition in the mobile market, specifically the tablet space.
“We don’t think that people who want an iPad will settle for limited function devices,” Cook said. “Last year was supposed to be year the of the tablet. Most people would probably agree it was year of the iPad for second year in a row.”
Cook said that he closely followed tablet sales data weekly after Amazon launched its Kindle Fire running a modified version of Android in late September (shipping the device in November). Cook said he “didn’t see an obvious effect on [iPad sales] numbers plus or minus.”
Further, he asserted that the lower cost Android competitors couldn’t compete with Apple’s developed “ecosystem” of numerous apps designed specifically for the iPad.
Apple’s “ecosystem is in a class by itself,” Cook said. “We’re optimizing our apps from day one to take advantage of the [iPad’s] larger canvas.”
Cook said Apple’s App Store had 170,000 iPad-specific apps.
“There appears to us to only be a few hundred for competition,” Cook added.
It should be noted that Amazon said its app store had “thousands” of apps ready for the Kindle Fire when it shipped in November.
Cook promised that iOS would remain the leader in the “horse race” when it came to Apple’s competitors in the mobile device market, namely, Google’s Android operating system.
Cook said in the call that Apple has sold over 315 million iOS devices worldwide and made a not-so subtle jab at Google’s transparency when it came to Android device sales totals, saying he hadn’t been able to find “comparable numbers on Android.”
Apple, by contrast, Cook said, always endeavored to be “crisp” and “transparent” when it came to sales numbers.
Chart by Clayton Ashley
