Intel migration delivers $546m profit for Apple

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Sales of 986,000 MacBook laptops plus 624,000 desktop Macs underpinned revenues of $4.8 billion and a $546 million profit, increases of 31 per cent and 27 per cent respectively on the same quarter last year.

However Apple warned that these are preliminary financial results that 'may be subject to significant adjustment' as a result of a likely restatement of all results since 2002 following the company's investigation into past stock option grants.

In shipping 1,610,000 Macs, a 30 per cent increase on the year-ago quarter, Apple beat its previous best sales total since CEO Steve Jobs returned to and reinvigorated the company, the 1,377,000 it sold in the last three months of 1999. While desktop sales rose only marginally, the company shipped an impressive 55 per cent more portables than it did in the corresponding 2005 quarter.

iPod sales also continued their upward trend, buoyed by the release of new models, with 8,720,000 sold. This is a year-on-year increase of 35 per cent and the second highest figure yet. Music-related revenues, comprising of iTunes Store sales, iPod services and Apple-branded and third-party iPod accessories, rose 70 per cent year-on-year, although they remained flat compared to the previous quarter. Apple attributed this to the relatively low number of new album releases during the summer. It reiterated that the iTunes Store operates primarily to sell iPods and accessories and makes no net contribution to Apple's profits.

Retail sales through the company's 165 stores were up 41 per cent, with 50 per cent of Mac customers being first-time buyers.

'This strong quarter caps an extraordinary year for Apple,' said Jobs. 'Selling more than 39 million iPods and 5.3 million Macs while performing an incredibly complex architecture transition is something we are all very proud of. Looking forward, 2007 is likely to be one of the most exciting new product years in Apple's history.'

Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's CFO, said that he was pleased to end Apple's financial year with over $10 billion in cash, having increased annual revenues by $11 billion in the last two years. He said that he expects record revenues of between $6.0 to $6.2 billion in the next quarter.

Oppenheimer added little to what is already known about Apple's stock options investigation, but did stress that Jobs is in no way implicated.

'The investigation found no misconduct of any member of Apple's current management team and that includes Steve,' he said during the results conference call.

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